Do you beleve in global warming?

Duh.

what? What did I say

Yes, I believe in global warming, and I also think the Earth is spiraling closer to the Sun, as we speak! Pretty soon, it will suck us into a fiery death, as referred to in every Holy Book known to man! EVERYBODY RUN!

Yes, I do. And so do the vast majority of scientists who study this full time. See these related questions:
http://www.fluther.com/disc/5610/whos-buying-into-global-warming/
http://www.fluther.com/disc/3788/is-global-warming-a-myth/

Yes, global warming is happening, due to high emissions of green house gasses and although it hasn’t taken as bad a turn yet as I believed, I just read in a political science in the next thirty years, if we do not change something it will have gone up by 1/5 I believe

it doesn’t matter if you believe in global warming or not. All that matters is whether or not you are willing to risk the possible catastrophic consequences predicting by most of the scientific community.
I mean seriously, maybe they’re right, maybe they’re wrong. If they’re wrong, ok, we spent some money to clean up and we now have a cleaner earth, better air, and we’re energy independent. If they’re right and we don’t do anything… well we could really get screwed.

People are so ignorant and selfish… this isn’t directed at you, its just that with the overwhelming evidence… ok, another time. I won’t threadjack

I am sorry simone, but whether you like or dislike Bush, global warming started way before he was in any office. You cannot take such a large issue as global warming and put it on one human being, look at how long we have been releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. I am pretty sure that this began before Bush was even concieved.

p.s. please don’t take this as a demeaning response, merely adding my input

hahahah Demean away! I was being sarcastic.

haha okay that is very true, there are a lot of Bush haters out there, and I guarantee the next president will be hated by the end of their term as well, unless there is a technological breakthrough to help turn energy consumption off of harmful sources

I read “State of Fear” by Michael Crichton, which was very well-reseached and cited, and now I’m not so sure anymore.

It might not be as bad as we are lead to believe, but I have researched the ozone layer and how it has been decomposing at increasingly high rates (once again not as high as we are lead to believe) but it is happening.

@original question: i do believe in global warming. i also believe in other irrefutable facts like the transparency of air, the existence of gravity, and the utter guarantee that right-wing politicians would rather spend twenty years trying to convince the world that there’s no such thing as global warming, than just take a hard look at the math and do something about it.

But back to the topic is there someone who really denies global warming whole-heartedly? I am not alienating anyone, I honestly wish to know and want facts of why so I can read about their side

I’m a skeptic. While there may be fancy graphs to prove that Climate Change is occurring, you can prove a correlation between anything.

I just try and think about it like this

Its just periodic Climatic Change! We saw it in London when the Thames River was completely frozen then it got hotter like it is now then in a couple of hundred years it will get colder again. this has also been shown through Ice Cores taken from the Antarctic

@bluemukaki: you can prove correlation. but correlation does not indicate causality. that’s a mistake a lot of people make.

if statistic A goes up, and we notice that statistic B also goes up, then we might assume that A caused B or B caused A. but it’s just as likely, if not more so, that an un-observed statistic C caused them both.

fancy graphs have nothing to do with global warming. cold hard science is what proves global warming. look at photographs of any glacier in the world from the past five years, and compare to photographs of the same glaciers from fifty years ago. same for snowy mountain peaks.

just look at temperature records! it is UNDENIABLE that the average temperature of the ocean is higher now than it was twenty years ago.

also, i might add, no matter how much we love the FSM, and i sure do, there is no scientific data to back up those numbers of pirates. i can name more than seventeen pirates right now off the top of my head. look…

While I might not completely believe in human-caused Global Warming, and I certainly don’t like how people have used Hurrican Katrina as a way to steer people to their cause, I’m all for doing as much as possible to help the environment. I don’t like the way it has become fashionable or almost creed to save the planet. It’s like a religion where the hell is the end of the world for everyone, and the heaven is also the end of the world for everyone because we didn’t act soon enough, and every single natural event that happens now is somehow something to do with Global Warming. Weather variation isn’t climate change!

actually, bluemukaki, you’re wrong. weather variation outside of predictable patterns is one of the best ways to measure climate change.

a warmer climate causes more moisture to evaporate into the air. wetter air leads to increased rainfall. ergo, as the climate warms, we will see more and more severe thunderstorms.

do your homework, and you’ll see the connection. what you call the “fashionable” trend of this cause, i call the inevitable widespread awakening to an imminent threat.

Alright here’s sometime extremely logical…

If you believe it or you don’t, if you think it’s because of people or it’s a natural phenomenon, or what ever. There is NO reason why we should do everything to prevent it. There is absolutely no bad effects of find cheaper more reliable resources. It’s that is easy.

Well actually, you’re right for a particular part of the planet. Variation at the poles is good (not temperature variation, weather pattern variation) and the common misconception is that weather variation is something that has only happened because of climate change, every heat wave, cold front and big thunder storm has something to do with climate change, regardless of the fact that much worse natural occurences have been happening for hundreds of years…and considering I have read the full IPCC 2005 report, I would think I have done my homework.

It hardly seems like inevitable widespread awakening for every company to begin marketing re-usable bags, for viral campaigns on MySpace and Facebook to promote climate change awareness and every manner of popular jewelry or clothing having pro-climate change slogans printed on it. You tell me that isn’t some fashionable cause, because all the buzz words and media hype are all so based on fact.

well of course corporations and business have jumped on the bandwagon! once an idea is rooted in the public, anyone who sells something is going to try to capitalize on it. in fact, that is proof in my eyes of the validity of my statement. marketing people aren’t easily fooled. they know how to speak to their audience. so if madison avenue is talking green, that means that the idea of being green has gotten past subculture and found its way to main street, usa.

But that still doesn’t prove the validity of the idea of climate change, merely that it is an economically viable trend.

The idea is rooted in the public because the media and everyone with any medium to speak is always talking climate change.

I think Column A is the only way to go, but I still think it’s a bit of a scam..!

This one is much better than the last one i posted.

Superb video in the post above.
It’s not really about whether GW is real or not. (I’m a sceptic to be honest) It is about living sustainably from now on or facing the possible harsh conditions of our future environment.

I have always wondered what the American automobile industry would have been able to come up with if they had used the money they spent lobbying congress for looser environmental/fuel economy standards for the past 20 years on developing alternative fuel technologies instead. It’s not like the scarcity of oil wasn’t noticed in the 70’s with the fuel crisis back then; I don’t get why they couldn’t predict higher gas prices and predict a vastly reduced demand in large/inefficient SUV’s. Just look at all the progress that’s being made in such short time with that alternative fuel x-prize competition (I think that’s what it’s called).

Come to think of it, it’d be nice to see those CEO’s and lobbyists get rounded up and sent off to the front lines of Iraq. Wouldn’t that be some poetic justice?

Pascal’s wager to a “T” except belief in God is replaced with belief in global warming. And no, you don’t choose one or the other, you choose them each independently.

Okay, so the basic question here is do I believe global warming is real. I don’t, but as the guy in the above videos proposes, I do believe that we should take some action. Please note that I just said “some.” I say that because as with any belief system (religious, scientific, political, social, etc.) there are extremists. The one thing I fear most is the action of mankind. I don’t mean that I prefer inaction, but mankind has a way of screwing things up when egos are on the line. Sorry, rant. I’m just afraid that all the possible legislation that could be passed as a result is going to harm us more than hurt us. They’re charging carbon credits for Christ’s sake. How soon before they charge us to breathe (because we do emit carbon.) And let’s say that they tell us everyone must drive an “eco-friendly car.” What then happens to the cars we currently drive that don’t meet their standards? If we can’t drive them they go to a landfill and further pollute the planet. What about the batteries in all the Prii (is that plural for Prius) and the like? Aren’t those dangerous to the world after they’re dead?

As far as the aforementioned videos goes I think he over simplified some things. For one, if global warming is false and we do take action he says the only downturn is a global depression (something he avoids calling it in the second video), this is opposite the other negative of if global warming is true and we do nothing in which he proposes there will also be massive environmental, political, social, and health problems. Well, if a global depression did occur then there too would be massive political, social, and health problems rising from that. Yes, there would still be environmental effects if GW were true (wait, global warming has the same initials as George W. Bush? [or George Washington]), but what would the economic scene look like in that bottom right hand corner? Thing is we can’t really know, just like we can’t know what the world is going to do in the future. The guy in the video thinks the NAS and AAAS know because they have researched, given an answer, and have reputations to uphold, but that’s just the problem. They have reputations. Scientists should not have reputations, just as religious, political, or social leaders should not. Reputations are a form of ego and therefore can not exist in someone who represents something larger than him or herself, because then you are putting yourself before the thing you represent which is supposed to be larger and more important than you.

No, I don’t believe in global warming, I believe it to be a cycle that spans hundreds or thousands of years. Yes, I believe some action is required as we should be good stewards of the planet we have been blessed with.

And yes, I know it was a long response.
And yes, I know there are alternatives like hydrogen power in lieu of battery driven hybrids.

@TheDeadWake im not disagreeing with anything you said there as i think that was very well put, but i would check out the rest of his videos as he goes into a lot more detail on most of the things you mentioned there.

@ wake: how would you then distinguish between reputation and credibility?

@nocountry2 Reputations and credibility are based on performance and generally judged by a third party. Scientists can have reputations, but only in the eyes of a third party. If they become concerned with their own reputation it becomes ego. The key is to do their job efficiently and the credibility will come with that.

Sorry, had to go, but basically…

Credibility is believability.
Reputation is the way people view you.

okay I can see that – I thought reputation was built upon a history of credibility

Example time,
Someone can have a reputation of being credible (or believable.)
Someone can have a reputation of having bad breath, or being a bad driver, or being the best golfer, or being a lush, etc.

[mod says]: edited to keep responses on topic.