By the time there is full consensus, it will be too late.... How odd that neocons and regressives will invade a country like Iraq, spend billions with no science to support an unnecessary war...yet when it is suggested that we need to do something about the ozone and global warming, when it is suggested that they not treat mother earth like their own personal toilet, they freak out big time.
I've read them but for the most part they do not have much data to support the claim that humans cause GW and to what extent they do . One of them mentions that oil is a fossil fuel and there is debate that it is. There is a well established theory that states oil is formed by tectonics deep in the mantle. FACT: There is international scientific consensus that most of the warming over the last 50 years is due to human activities, not natural causes. "Over millions of years, animals and plants lived, died and were compressed to form huge deposits of oil, gas and coal. In little more than 300 years, however, we have burned a large amount of this storehouse of carbon to supply energy. Today, the by-products of fossil fuel use - billions of tons of carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide), methane, and other greenhouse gases - form a blanket around the Earth, trapping heat form the sun, unnaturally raising temperatures on the ground, and steadily changing our climate. " Also, how do you explain the south pole temp over the past 50 years not conforming with the theory? DS
If you don't think that any of those links I gave you "do not have much data to support the claim" that humans cause global warming, you either have very low comprehension skills of what you read, or have not read them, and any further "proof" that I give you will be even more difficult to comprehend since IMO those links do a good job of presenting the data and giving a balanced view on the issues. I can not improve upon them. You want to know what the proof that you do not comprehend is? That you keep asking about the temperature of the south pole over the last 50 years. You cannot have comprehended what is posted on those links and continue to ask that question as relevant. Reread the part about the differences between climate and weather as it relates to Global Warming. nitro
The destruction of the ozone layer is a scientific fact. http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/Students_Teachers/ozanim/ozoanim.shtml It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that destruction of the ozone layer via CFC has consequences to climate and other issues that effect human beings, i.e. the increase in skin cancer, jet streams influencing weather, movement of animals and destruction of oceanic vegetation and plankton in the sea, etc.
That's why we err on the side of prudence. There is already one planet in our system with a runaway greenhouse effect.
Right, you got it. Especially because if we do contribute, the process takes decades if not centuries to reverse, no matter what you do. nitro
Read carefully: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/24/ice_shelf_collapse/ http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa011802a.htm?iam=savvy&terms=+doran++antarctica And the section on Antartica on this post http://www.solcomhouse.com/ElninoLanina.htm nitro
You may be on to something in the nortern polar regions where to me there is clear evidence of warming trends. Whether it is within the normal very long term variation or not is a reasonable scientific question and whether it is caused by burning coal/gas/oil is also something that should be debated. IMO, soot may be the culprit there and everyone seems focused on controlling oil/coal burning gas, CO2, which may not be the primary cause of what is observed in the frozen or not so frozen north. You might be interested in this discussion by NASA scientists of the role of soot : ""This research offers additional evidence that black carbon may have a significant warming impact on the Arctic," Koch said. Warmer temperatures in the Arctic mean melting ice and snow, among other things. These temperature and ice changes also wind up affecting climate patterns around the world. " http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/arctic_soot.html DS