Do you believe in global warming?

It's not something that will significantly affect me in my lifetime so despite believing it I don't really care much about it.

@Humanity said:

It's not something that will significantly affect me in my lifetime so despite believing it I don't really care much about it.

Yes it will, unless you're planning to die within the next 20-30 years.

@9cupsoftea said:

@Humanity said:

It's not something that will significantly affect me in my lifetime so despite believing it I don't really care much about it.

Yes it will, unless you're planning to die within the next 20-30 years.

Or rather, unless you're planning to die five years ago. Climate change is already affecting all of our lives in major ways. An example would be the global rise in food prices due to unprecedented droughts and floods in every continent of the world.

Its an old wives tale.

Climate Change is a more accurate term, but yeah, I believe that it's happening. Just look at the way humans go about their lives. We are consuming everything. Of course that's going to have an effect.

@troll93 said:

@Silvergun said:

Like so many other things, it's gotten turned into a political issue. There's really no serious debate on if global warming is happening, but that doesn't stop pundits from waving it around as a specter that the left has cooked up to redistribute all our money, etc. In other countries like China, India, or Russia, it's more an issue of them being unwilling to curb their growth to combat their CO2 emissions. Sadly, it's a simple matter of most countries being unwilling to change because as it stands, that change would be more painful than the perceived consequences of not doing so.

Funny thing is, India and China specifically is starting to roll onto some solar power, is doing a lot to encourage using trains and are doubling down on thorium nuclear power, in my opinion, one of the better solutions until we figure out fusion. In this way, they are doing a lot better than the US, Australia and most of Europe.

Solar is a good suppliment, but like you said, nuclear really is our best option until fusion gets up and running. Sadly, once again, it's become a political issue thanks to people who have no idea how nuclear power works making noise until politicians listen to them. It's the cleanest, safest way to create large amounts of energy out there (especially if we'd get on board with waste reprocessing like France and Japan have been doing for decades).

@MariachiMacabre said:

@runnah555

@MariachiMacabre said:

@runnah555

@MariachiMacabre said:

@runnah555

Man also thought the earth was flat and the sun revolved around the earth. Take that into consideration.

After 9/11, the earth warmed 2 degrees on average because those streams that planes leave behind are good reflectors. The earth is measurably warmer and that's not up for debate.

Not sure I understand the first sentence.

After 9/11 planes were grounded nearly worldwide and, because of that, there were none of those vapor trails left behind by planes. Those trails are very potent reflectors of the suns energy so in the days following 9/11, the earths average temperature jumped nearly 2 degrees. Which usually takes years to happen.

You have personally set the scientific community back 5 years with that statement.

Insult all you want but it's the truth. I'm on the mobile site so I can't make a link but here is the study. http://articles.cnn.com/2002-08-07/tech/contrails.climate_1_contrails-cirrus-clouds-david-travis?_s=PM:TECH I'm not the one "setting the scientific community back 5 years" and using petty insults instead of trying to dispute the claim is pretty funny.

That certainly wasn't a petty insult. It's not the "truth" as you put it. It's a hypothesis put forward by a small study. A study that wasn't ready very well by yourself.

@MariachiMacabre said:

@runnah555

@MariachiMacabre said:

@runnah555

@MariachiMacabre said:

@runnah555

Man also thought the earth was flat and the sun revolved around the earth. Take that into consideration.

After 9/11, the earth warmed 2 degrees on average because those streams that planes leave behind are good reflectors. The earth is measurably warmer and that's not up for debate.

Not sure I understand the first sentence.

After 9/11 planes were grounded nearly worldwide and, because of that, there were none of those vapor trails left behind by planes. Those trails are very potent reflectors of the suns energy so in the days following 9/11, the earths average temperature jumped nearly 2 degrees. Which usually takes years to happen.

You have personally set the scientific community back 5 years with that statement.

Insult all you want but it's the truth. I'm on the mobile site so I can't make a link but here is the study.

http://articles.cnn.com/2002-08-07/tech/contrails.climate_1_contrails-cirrus-clouds-david-travis?_s=PM:TECH I'm not the one "setting the scientific community back 5 years" and using petty insults instead of trying to dispute the claim is pretty funny.

Or, you know, maybe the fact we weren't pumping metric tonnes of CO2 directly into the upper atmosphere was the difference? The idea that a 50-10 metre span of cloud trails can significantly reflect heat is about as logical as saying if we all wore white hats it would make the earth cooler.

The evidence shows that it is happening. The question is whether or not man is really causing it or is it a natural cycle the earth goes through...

@isomeri said:

@9cupsoftea said:

@Humanity said:

It's not something that will significantly affect me in my lifetime so despite believing it I don't really care much about it.

Yes it will, unless you're planning to die within the next 20-30 years.

Or rather, unless you're planning to die five years ago. Climate change is already affecting all of our lives in major ways. An example would be the global rise in food prices due to unprecedented droughts and floods in every continent of the world.

I haven't felt it in my day to day life. As I understood it when I learned about it years ago, the rise in temperature is very slow - but if anyone wants to lay down some facts I'm open to listening and learning something new. Key word "facts" rather than something you heard the cabbie tell you on the way to the airport.

Global Warming is nothing but a lie perpetuated by the Liberal Media.

@iTWAN said:

The evidence shows that it is happening. The question is whether or not man is really causing it or is it a natural cycle the earth goes through...

I'm no scientist, but we all learned about the greenhouse effect in high school, right? Everyone agrees that life on earth wouldn't even be possible without it. If human beings are sending the same gases that are part of the natural greenhouse effect up into the atmosphere in far greater quantities than would naturally occur, that has to have some kind of effect on the climate.

I'll trust the scientists on this one. You know, the people who spend their entire lives studying this shit.

@bushpusherr said:

I'll trust the scientists on this one. You know, the people who spend their entire lives studying this shit.

Why would you trust anyone that you've never met just because of their title?

@chrissedoff said:

@iTWAN said:

The evidence shows that it is happening. The question is whether or not man is really causing it or is it a natural cycle the earth goes through...

I'm no scientist, but we all learned about the greenhouse effect in high school, right? Everyone agrees that life on earth wouldn't even be possible without it. If human beings are sending the same gases that are part of the natural greenhouse effect up into the atmosphere in far greater quantities than would naturally occur, that has to have some kind of effect on the climate.

You are right, but the real question is whether increasing temperature is caused by increasing CO2 or if they are just two increasing, but totally separate, phenomena. What people don't seem to remember, or if they do they just point to a graph, is that the earth has gone through massive climatic shifts in the past. I mean we had glaciers is almost all of Canada and Europe but now glaciers are only found in high altitude and fairly northern places. Moreover, the sea level was so low at one point that humans could walk from Russia to Alaska and never get their feet wet. These shifts caused animal extinction and a whole bunch of other not-so-good things.

In saying that, if climate change is happening, which it is, and if humans are playing that big of a role in it, then it certainly doesn't hurt to cut back on our fossil fuel consumption. Now, if climate change is really happening and if humans are NOT playing a role at all in it, I still don't see any harm in reducing our consumption of fossil fuels and in general living a more environmentally friendly life. I mean, we know that fossil fuels are a finite resource and can cause health problems, then why continue to rely on them. In general, it wouldn't hurt anyone to live a "greener" life style regardless if we are an attributing factor to global climate change.

"Global Warming" is also a pretty old term. "Climate Change" is actually much more apt to describe what's going on in the world because some places are not seeing a temperature increase but rather a temperature decrease.

Yes, I'm not insane.

@Jams said:

@bushpusherr said:

I'll trust the scientists on this one. You know, the people who spend their entire lives studying this shit.

Why would you trust anyone that you've never met just because of their title?

Because those people are part of a heavily vetted community of scientific professionals that constantly have their work put under great scrutiny by others in their field?

@Jams said:

@bushpusherr said:

I'll trust the scientists on this one. You know, the people who spend their entire lives studying this shit.

Why would you trust anyone that you've never met just because of their title?

Because I know how the scientific community operates? It's not because of a "title", it's because of the scientific method. Also, I will never have enough time in my life to know everything about everything...so when you need information on something you aren't familiar with...you go to the experts. I would rather believe people who are actually analyzing real evidence and go through mountains of peer reviewed criticism than listen to some crackpot who dissents their conclusions for no particularly good reason.

Global Warming is a "controversy" in the same way that Evolution is a "controversy". It's an issue completely taken over and distorted for political gain while there are real, legitimate concerns that we need to be addressing. We may not know or understand all the details, but we sure know that doing nothing about it is a pretty darn bad idea.

Yeah, I believe it. I'm not so sure about it humans being the cause though~ Also in the big scheme of things and considering the drastic climate changes the earth has gone through in the past, its just not even really news worthy~

@Jams said:

@bushpusherr said:

I'll trust the scientists on this one. You know, the people who spend their entire lives studying this shit.

Why would you trust anyone that you've never met just because of their title?

I'm a Dumb Statementologist, and that is a dumb statement.

@A_Talking_Donkey said:

@Jams said:

@bushpusherr said:

I'll trust the scientists on this one. You know, the people who spend their entire lives studying this shit.

Why would you trust anyone that you've never met just because of their title?

I'm a Dumb Statementologist, and that is a dumb statement.

Well, if you're a "Dumb Statementologist, PhD" then I guess I'll have to take your word for it. I'd question it but you know, you're a "Dumb Statementologist" so you're automatically right every time.

I get so annoyed when people say its fact... we have no data on what temperature was like before the last 100 years. So we can't really say if its true or not, I hate stubborn young kids who just blindly buy this shit. Its statistically proven, not scientifically, if you don't know the difference then you should not be talking about this.

Not saying its not true, but I would say that 99% of people who believe in it, are dogmatically just repeating what some scientist said in some video.

It's kind of upsetting that observable climate change is something people have to choose to believe in. We've seen the numbers and, yeah, it's happening. 
  
However, I've yet to see proof that humans are actually causing it, don't natural geological activities dump shit-tons of carbon into the atmosphere anyway? That said, just because I haven't seen the numbers doesn't mean it's not true, I find it totally plausible.

@TooWalrus said:

@Jams: I love that out of the three responses to that comment, you only chose to respond to the gag post, and ignore the actually intelligent ones.

well, that was the most fun one to respond to.

@TooWalrus said:

It's kind of upsetting that observable climate change is something people have to choose to believe in. We've seen the numbers and, yeah, it's happening.

However, I've yet to see proof that humans are actually causing it, don't natural geological activities dump shit-tons of carbon into the atmosphere anyway? That said, just because I haven't seen the numbers doesn't mean it's not true, I find it totally plausible.

That was what I was trying about just believing "scientist". While they all agree there's a climate change, you get some that are telling you to hurry and buy a Prius or the earth will explode, and other ones saying it's happening but there are more important things to worry about for the time being. How can you just trust any scientist? Like what @TruthTellah said earlier. You can hold science in the highest regard, but scientist are just people. They can easily span the moral compass. Trust the science, not the scientist.

Just a quick note because it is a pet peeve of mine there are no 'facts' in science. There's theory. There's data and evidence. There's proof. But there are no facts because we can never know anything with absolutely certainty.

Ok, back to the discussions.

@gamefreak9 said:

I get so annoyed when people say its fact... we have no data on what temperature was like before the last 100 years. So we can't really say if its true or not, I hate stubborn young kids who just blindly buy this shit. Its statistically proven, not scientifically, if you don't know the difference then you should not be talking about this.

Not saying its not true, but I would say that 99% of people who believe in it, are dogmatically just repeating what some scientist said in some video.

While I don't disagree that a lot of people hop on the bandwagon without doing their homework (on both sides), there is absolutely data out there that tells us what climate and conditions were like far into the past. We also know that the planet is warming far faster than it would be naturally, and that this is due to our atmosphere retaining more and more heat due to increased CO2 concentration which is caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. There's really no serious debate in the scientific community about this.

@Silvergun said:

@gamefreak9 said:

I get so annoyed when people say its fact... we have no data on what temperature was like before the last 100 years. So we can't really say if its true or not, I hate stubborn young kids who just blindly buy this shit. Its statistically proven, not scientifically, if you don't know the difference then you should not be talking about this.

Not saying its not true, but I would say that 99% of people who believe in it, are dogmatically just repeating what some scientist said in some video.

While I don't disagree that a lot of people hop on the bandwagon without doing their homework (on both sides), there is absolutely data out there that tells us what climate and conditions were like far into the past. We also know that the planet is warming far faster than it would be naturally, and that this is due to our atmosphere retaining more and more heat due to increased CO2 concentration which is caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. There's really no serious debate in the scientific community about this.

there's no debate because there's limited data, the scientific community does not like to argue with limited data. We do not know if its cyclical since we only have data of the past 100 years. Even if its not cyclical we do not even know if its because of CO2, for instance its been found that every 11 years there are solar rays from the sun that cause damage to the climate. Its ridiculous to pinpoint it all down to one thing.

I don't there's a conspiracy to make us all believe in global warming or anything like that but... 
 
the fact is I honestly don't know enough about it to have an informed opinion.

Yes I do. Because I'm not a colossal fucking moron.

@Jams said:

@TooWalrus said:

@Jams: I love that out of the three responses to that comment, you only chose to respond to the gag post, and ignore the actually intelligent ones.

well, that was the most fun one to respond to.

@TooWalrus said:

It's kind of upsetting that observable climate change is something people have to choose to believe in. We've seen the numbers and, yeah, it's happening.

However, I've yet to see proof that humans are actually causing it, don't natural geological activities dump shit-tons of carbon into the atmosphere anyway? That said, just because I haven't seen the numbers doesn't mean it's not true, I find it totally plausible.

That was what I was trying about just believing "scientist". While they all agree there's a climate change, you get some that are telling you to hurry and buy a Prius or the earth will explode, and other ones saying it's happening but there are more important things to worry about for the time being. How can you just trust any scientist? Like what @TruthTellah said earlier. You can hold science in the highest regard, but scientist are just people. They can easily span the moral compass. Trust the science, not the scientist.

Your right, we shouldn't trust anyone based on their credentials or field experience :P

If my "doctor" ever tells me I have cancer I'll just be all.

After all we know cancer exists and that people get it, but there is a history of misdiagnosis which clearly means that doctors can get it wrong.

The fact we are still even debating whether this is even happening after so many decades

doesn't give me much hope we're going to be successful combating it.

@FancySoapsMan said:

I don't there's a conspiracy to make us all believe in global warming or anything like that but... the fact is I honestly don't know enough about it to have an informed opinion.

if more people were like this, the world would be a better place

@Jams said:

That was what I was trying about just believing "scientist". While they all agree there's a climate change, ...

This is pretty much exactly the point I was making in my original comment (because it answers the question that the OP asked), which is why your response to it seemed so absurd.

Of course I didn't mean "Oh hey, I know a scientist, and I believe every word out of his mouth." If I don't personally know enough information about something that scientists have spent years researching, I feel comfortable accepting the scientific consensus on that topic because I know the methods by which they arrived at their conclusions.

I think people really blow the whole thing out of proportion, but I definitely think it exists, perhaps in a more minor form than some people lead us to believe however. We should still recycle and all that jazz though. For the children mannn.

How does belief have anything to do with this at all ? You either accept the cold hard evidence and facts or you deny them belief doesn't even come into the equation after all facts are facts they don't care if you accept them or not.

I know a way to solve this "debate". Send all of the climate change deniers to the North Pole with enough food, energy, etc. to last 10 years. If they are still there after the ten years, then maybe they do have a point. Of course, if we still haven't done anything about the problem at that time then we are all royally fucked.

People who deny evolution are stupid. People who deny climate change are dangerous.

3.4% actually voted no. I hate people.

I can't believe they had a poll for this (I don't mean you, I mean Xbox).

Like... come on America.

...

Come on.

@pornstorestiffi said:

3.4% actually voted no. I hate people.

After living in the likes of Alaska, 3.4% is a very satisfying number.

Only idiots would say no to that question. People who think global warming isn't real have the same level of intelligence as those who still believe the earth is flat.

I believe in Harvey Dent.