Is Global Warming a Natural Phenomenon?

[StuartDH]

"Global Warming is a Natural Phenomenon" is something that I hear on almost every debate about global warming and climate change on the TV and radio. While we're definitely coming out of an ice age, it seems as though many feel that this is the only/main reason why the planet is getting warmer and that global warming is a natural phenomenon without significant change by man.

As a result, should we be looking to re-label 'global warming by human action' to enable people to more easily identify the distinction between natural climate change and anthropogenic climate change?

[Wild-Woman]

Although I know very little about GW, I think that we have probably accelerated a natural phenomenon, thereby giving the world less time to adapt and prepare for what is inevitable.
Sometimes when I'm out and about in Kent, I ponder upon when it once was a tropical sea, many millions of years ago. The chalk downs and cliffs are evidence of this and it has occurred to me that one day it could change again and be a tropical sea once more. So this would indicated that it's just the worlds rhythm and we've reached the cusp of change.
I don't think humans would have done things any differently if we had known about GW 150 years back, so perhaps we are part of that rhythm. I don't know, it's a very big subject and I don't think we've even scratched the surface of it.

[ChasCreek]

After seeming various arguments for both sides, I must admit that I do feel that it is a natural occurence, a cycle in solar activity etc.

However we have been damaging the enviromnet in many different ways for a long time and even if what we have been doing has only been a small part of the whole we still need to do something about our way of living / treating the planet and a lot of the 'actions' being undertaken / proposed under the 'global warming' banner will do good anyway for the planet irrespective of whether they actually are affecting global warming.

I do wonder sometimes if there are alterior motives in things. We had the 'cold war' with Russia back in the 1970's and we now know that Russia didn't have even a small percentage of the capabilities we were being led to believe they had.

I feel that governments need a focus for their population, in the 70's it was the cold war, now it is global warming. It would be far easier to get people to make changes to their lifestyles if you tell them you are going to turn the planet into a desert in less than a 100 years so better be greener, than to say well the global warming is mainly a natural thing, but well we are running out of natural resources so we need to change lifestyles. Shock tactics get responses.

So I think that we are probably only a factor in a much wider natural cycle, however the changes that are being made / will be made under the 'we are responsible for global warming' banner are for the good of the planet anyway so it's good propaganda. And of course the truth is that no one will really know the truth (rather like the cold war) for a good many years until governments can disclose the truth without having a backlash.

[FlyAgaric]

Hi all

Not all, but most people who believe that Global Warming is a natural phenomenon, especially those who are paid to do the “its not human caused science" have a connection somewhere down the line to either the Bush administration, or big oil companies and hardcore capitalist organisations. How Ironic, not!!!

Sure the planet does give of some of these gases and naturally pollutes itself, and the climate has changed in the past, but if you look at the statistics, its now changing perfectly in accordance, and in line and in unison with the industrial revolution.

And even if it is natural or human caused, if you think about it, its irrelevant. Despite what the fact are, we need to stop chopping down forest after forest, polluting lake after lake, pumping unnatural amounts of things into our environment day after day, and stop relying on energy from countries that are causing war after war. Human caused or not, none of them things are good, and anyone with half a brain can see that.

I agree with some that the government are using the fear that comes with global warming as an excuse to make money with "green taxes ect" which is hypocritical and sick being they are the ones mostly responsible for causing most of the damage to the environment, its like a win win situation for the government, they get rich by both raping the planet and exploiting it, then taxing people by telling them it will help the planet. A paradox even I struggle to fathom.

This is how I see it…. I think most of the reason for climate change is because of human activity, and a minority is because of nature itself, because I understand just what a delicate balance nature is in to give us the climate we have today, and us greedy sods could easily push it right over the edge.

Lets just say it is natures fault, and there is nothing we can do about it. At least we tried to make it better. Its better than doing nothing, which is what these big oil company funded far right scientists seem to want.

Lets just say its humans fault, at least we tried to make it better and maybe even causes it to become less severe, causing a less minor global catastrophe and suffering.

What do we have to lose by trying to make the planet more healthy? A lot less than what we do by doing sweet nothing.

[Paul mabbott]

A good point, Stuart, although the language is already there and I've mentioned it again and again.....

The temperature of the Earth's atmosphere is not, and never has been, constant. Therefore, naturally, we would have global warming or global cooling - both amount to a part of climate change.

Most scientists have stressed that concerns are with climate change rather than global warming pers se.

What we are concerned about are anthropogenic changes - i.e. climate changes due specifically to human activity - this will all be added to (or taken away from ) any natural climate changes. It must be admitted that many people have taken advantage of these two vectors to confuse the issue so that they don't have to take any action ...

Therefore if you want a simple label for what we can do something about then it has been there for a long time - anthropogenically enhanced climatic change - but it's not bery catchy is it?

This is where you see the problem - use a comprehensive definition of what the problem is and some people will say, "That's too technical, can't cope with that .... ". Use a simplified term like global warming or climate change then people (sometimes the same ones ) will say, "You're over-simplifying .... it's a natural phenomenon .... " .... anything really so that they don't have to change their life-style

The further complication is that when we talk about 'climate change' it is actually as variable as that on the local scale. The atmospheric temperature globally will rise, but this doesn't mean that Britain (for instance) will end up with nice calm Mediterranean climate [I have more than once had people saying, "I don't mind about global warming - I'll be able to go to Brighton rather than Marbella for holidays ...."]. What has always been clear about the British isles is that with changes of weather systems in the northern hemisphere, weather on these islands would become almost unpredictable (it's not easy to give a weather forecast at present!) .... don't say you weren't warned, thirty years ago ..... or earlier ...

[excoriate]

When the IPCC come out and say its man-made, then its man made.

The "debate" thats still kicking about in some quarters should have ended years ago but you still have the crack pots and exxon funded geologists and biotech zealots with junk science trying to reassure people that everythings fine.

[ChrisJB]

Climate Change/Global Warming is a natural occurence and is governed by a range of factors. As I have mentioned in another thread, we seem to be in an interglacial at the moment and this interglacial is getting warmer. But it won't always be so. Eventually, it will get cold again here in Britain and very cold at that.

Milutin Milankovitch, a Serbian astrophysicist, described subtle perturbations in the Earth's orbit, which govern how much sunlight reaches us at different latitudes. Consequently, we get periodic expansion and contraction of the Polar ice-caps. Seemingly, Milankovitch's theory seems to explain nearly every fluctuation in the Ice Age.

However, we are not helping! But, I don't think we are making a huge difference to Global Warming either, and building ineffectual swathes of wind turbines and destroying precious habitats and landscapes is folly.

And for those folks yearning for a return to tropical seas, you are going to have to wait awhile, when Continental Drift will plonk the British Isles back in the Tropics again!

Regards, Chris

[Charlenesbunnies]

Has anybody watched 'The Inconvenient Truth???!!' if not, watch it. You'll understand it a lot better!

[The Black Rabbit]

Global warming TM.
Climate change.

Very different!

Global warming TM is now, and make no mistake about this, a very real and a very large global economy.

Watch anything you want regarding Global warming TM at the movies or on television, read anything you like about it in the newspapers, or listen to reports on your radio about the subject.
Just take an awful lot of what you hear / read / see with a huge amount of salt.

Doug

[FlyAgaric]

Chris your not a spokesperson for Exxon by any chance are you?

All what you believe there, more than not comes from big oil company science, the same kind of science that tries to prove the creationist theory that the universe is only 6 thousand years old.