I know there are holocaust deniers, and I’m not an Al Gore fan, but isn’t the evidence… well…evident?
Aren’t melting glaciers an indication?
Polar bears coming into humans’ habitats looking for food?
Regarding the holocaust?
IIRC, wasn’t it then - General Eisenhower who made Germans walk through the camps because, in his words, “One day some sonofabitch is gonna say this didn’t happen!”?
Glenn Beck uses that a similar argument when he laughs at the idea of global warming (x amount of years have been colder than the average, therefore global warming is nonsense). I believer Limbaugh has used the same “logic”. Plenty of their listeners believe them. There have been threads in GD with some Dopers not believing global warming is real.
One small issue that is in the process of being resolved is the “branding” of the phenomenon.
For years people used the term “Global Warming”. This left open the critics who boasted, “Hey, look! Florida is actually colder! Therefore it can’t be Global Warming!” A tiresome and petty distinction, but words have power soooo…
…now the term is “Global Climate Change”. This allows for the variety of localized anomalous weather effects to be described without triggering basically meaningless debate.
I guess it all depends on how you load up the term “global warming.”
If all you mean is “Recent observed temperatures show an upwards trend,” then it’s pretty hard to disagree with that statement. The numbers are what they are.
However, if you mean “Man-made greenhouse gases are causing a long-term warming trend,” then I’m not entirely convinced. I’ll agree that the bulk of the evidence supports the conclusion, but it isn’t the kind of position that can be conclusively proved as a fact. (After all, climate models are continually being adjusted; temp increases have been lower than expected even though CO2 increases have been higher than expected. 40 years ago, the worry was that we were entering an ice age. Oops.)
If you mean “Man-made greenhouse gases are causing a long-term warming trend that we can stop through rapid and severe political measures,” I think you’re more full of hot air than the Earth is. The more right global warming is, the less it’s the kind of problem we can solve. We’re better off spending $200 billion on better dams than on emissions controls.
Indeed, I heard Limbaugh argue as follows. The ice caps are melting. But if the ice caps are melting, cold water is mixing into the oceans. So the oceans are cooling down. So everything’s fine. Therefore people who think the globe is warming are nincompoops.
[QUOTE=dracoi;11585218
If you mean “Man-made greenhouse gases are causing a long-term warming trend that we can stop through rapid and severe political measures,” I think you’re more full of hot air than the Earth is. [/QUOTE]
If it’s granted that man-made greenhouse gases are causing a long-term warming trend, then it’s already established that human actions can cause long-term climate trends quite rapidly. (I.e. over the course of decades.) So then, there’s nothing ridiculous about thinking the trend can be controlled through rapid measures.
I just hate the fact that there are people who would want you to believe that black is white, and being half-German, it saddens me that there are those who would want us to believe there was no holocaust, and I guess one thing just led to another; hence the “Global Warming” thread.
Well… I can throw you off a cliff very quickly and with a small amount of force. Stopping you before you hit the bottom is another thing entirely. Jumping down after you is going to do no one any good at all.
Is the Earth on average hotter than it was 40 years ago? YES
Is it on average colder that it was 10 years ago? YES
Have scientists been able to predict short term trend in temperature without fiddling endelessly with models? NO
Do the same models used to predict future temperature rises work backwards 200 years? NO
Is Global Warming so insidious that it will cause more rain were itis bad, less rain were it is bad, more temperature where it is bad and less temperature where it is bad? NO
Can the ammount of CO2 be reduced or even levelled off at present levels without draconian, painful rules? NO WAY
As I said previously, there are MUCH more intillegent minds than mine in this thread, but I was just asking a question: Are there still people who deny climate change/global warming?
It could have been answered yes or no with examples, and that would have been fine by me, but no, it got placed in here where there are no opportunities for yes or no answers, and then the dogs started barking!
It was NEVER meant to be a DEBATE! It was ONLY a friggin’ Question!