Thread: Global Warming... Not real?!

I suppose this will have to go here until the serious discussion section has been created

Me and a mate were discussing this earlier. He believes that global warming isn't real because "they had cows, dogs and cars in the old days. And they say global warming is a recent thing". But i said "global warming isn't a recent thing. They've only recently found the causes but that doesn't mean the effects have occurred recently. Yes they did have cows, dogs and cars in the old days but there are millions more of each than there were, say 15 years ago"

An online debate over global warming science has broken out after an unknown hacker broke into the e-mail server at a prominent, British climate-research center, stole more than a thousand e-mails about global warming research and posted them online.

Global warming skeptics are seizing on portions of the messages as evidence that scientists are colluding and warping data to fit the theory of global warming, but researchers say the e-mails are being taken out of context and just show scientists engaged in frank discussion

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think global warming isn't real?

Sources:
Hacked E-Mails Fuel Global Warming Debate | Threat Level | Wired.com
Climate sceptics claim leaked emails are evidence of collusion among scientists | Environment | The Guardian
Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Sam

i dunno.. i mean in india, the seasons have experienced a shift of 1 to 1.5 months.. for example, its december here and the temps are equivalent to what they should be in october! usually earlier, winters used to come around november but it still hasnt arrived here.. so i guess the seasonal shift can be attributed to global warming? correct me if i am mistaken :)

This seems like a good example of people who know very little about how science works citing researchers out of context in order to justify their own claims. Sorry, but scientists don't have the time, money, organization, or motivation to fabricate a myth on this level. You need to keep in mind that emails between scientists are typically very informal. We may be a bunch of geeks, but we still joke around, include personal opinions that aren't actually backed by evidence, and trade little "tricks" about how to better analyze and display our data (because it's not always clear how to normalize and display data collected in the real world) when we send emails back and forth about our work. You also have to keep in mind that there is a level of understanding between colleagues working in the same field that doesn't exist amongst "experts" and "regular folks", and we tend to know each other outside of our studies. In other words, one researcher in Colorado sending an email saying "Global warming? Well, it's been colder here this year than ever, we could use some global warming over here!" does not translate to "global warming isn't happening, and this is all a big hoax to fool the stupid working class". It's a joke between two people who know each other, understand climate change, and need some comic relief because being a scientist is a frustrating job with long hours spent crunching numbers and waiting for data that may not even be adequate for publication.

It's actually a bit sad that the opposition to global warming has to resort to attacking the veracity of the researchers rather than the veracity of the data. If global warming isn't real, then we aren't going to prove it by attempting to discredit the entire scientific community, but rather by using the very system that conceived it in the first place. That's what makes science so great, isn't it? I mean, today we can be saying "global warming is man-made and is going to end the world" and tomorrow we can find a new piece of evidence that completely changes our opinion, causing us to say "darn, it looks like we're actually entering a new ice age". And that's ok. It's acceptable. It's embarrassing for all of the people who were wrong, but it's acceptable.

In short, it is, of course, possible that global warming is not real, but the idea that the entire scientific community is in cahoots to trick the world's population is utterly absurd, and the opposition would do much better to start looking at data instead of personal emails between colleagues and friends.

If you are interested in Global Warming ie. Climate Change, a good book to read is Thomas L. Friedman's "Hot, Flat, and Crowded"

But, on another note, people will say what they want, until they actually do some research instead of listening to the media hearsay that most people base their "facts" on. And, the climate in the period that we generally look at as being "warmed" is the post-industrial era. If we look at global carbon dioxide levels from then compared to now, we are at an average of a much higher level (in parts per million.) It's the people who don't want to believe that we could do something detrimental to the environment who are fixed in their ways and refuse to believe. I know people also like to say, well "X" number of years ago, it was hotter and colder and whatnot, but they also don't understand that the time period we have to look at (post-industrial) is such an incredibly SMALL part of Earth's history. We haven't had time to notice those actual trends developing, and never will (as long as we are alive). But, there is no doubt that we emit more C02 than we ever have, methane concentration (which is heavier than C02) is a lot higher, which is due to higher amounts of livestock, coming from more industrialization, spurred from higher levels of income and standard of living... It's a slippery slope, and we are sliding off.

We already have multiple threads on this, search before you start a new one dude.
Global Warming
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