Do you believe in man-made global warming?

I really can't believe this is even up for debate. 

Pastmaster wrote: Blacksword wrote: Upbeat Tango Monday wrote: Gotta love a good, smart, scientific debate. "Tidal waves are upon us. Mankind is doomed. I feel it in my guts, we are condemned! We will pay for our sins against Gaia!" You are talking about rapture and judgment day...show me hard proof God exists. You are talking about men destroying the earth...show me hard proof it is so. Clowns to the left. Jokers to the right.   So the evidence published by climate scientists the world over isn't proof as far as your concerned? You're equating religious psychosis with science. Good luck with that. Honestly, global warming has been essentially turned into political psychosis rather than science. Yes, there's absolutely scientific proof that humans have had an effect on climate change since The Industrial Age, but it's turned into a political issue. It shouldn't be, as it has nothing to do with politics and is purely science, hence why it can be hard to have an actual scientific debate about the issue. Politicians need to get out of the scientific world, so actual science can be presented without bias and agenda.

Pastmaster wrote: Yes, there's scientific proof that technological advancements since the industrial age have at least partly caused global warming. There is, however, also a pattern of climate change that the Earth has naturally gone in, so it's not like we've completely altered the atmosphere. To believe humans have the power to do that in such a relatively short time is absurd.

Not at all sure why it's absurd. The dust bowl was a man-made ecological disaster that removed the topsoil from 100,000,000 acres. That was done by only a small population of regional farmers with far lower technology than we have today. Humans were 100% responsible. It never would have happened without over farming and inadvisable farming techniques. It was not a 100% man-made because there were other climactic conditions contributing. That's a different assessment, which is also overly reductive, like saying the baseball's mass and density are partly responsible for breaking the window. In actuality, Earth climate would be naturally going in the direction of cooling absent the human contribution.

The Dark Elf wrote: EddieRUKiddingVarese wrote: So your not worried about the Antarctic Ice? Heavens no! I am not at all worried about the Antarctic ice, because it's too far south to concern me. And it's very dense ice, not unlike some posters on this forum.

Arctic ice by and large does not sit over land. If it melts, it will not raise sea level (Greenland's ice, though, is one serious exception). Antarctic ice sits over a continent, and, if it melts, it will raise sea levels - everywhere.

Blacksword wrote: Upbeat Tango Monday wrote: Gotta love a good, smart, scientific debate. "Tidal waves are upon us. Mankind is doomed. I feel it in my guts, we are condemned! We will pay for our sins against Gaia!" You are talking about rapture and judgment day...show me hard proof God exists. You are talking about men destroying the earth...show me hard proof it is so. Clowns to the left. Jokers to the right. So the evidence published by climate scientists the world over isn't proof as far as your concerned? You're equating religious psychosis with science. Good luck with that.

SteveG wrote: A majority of PA pollsters, so far, think that the world is millions of years old but that climate change is false. What gives?

A majority here think that man-made (or man exacerbated to put it a little better) greenhouse warming is not a hoax or conspiracy.

One has to take into account the clowning around I did with the poll question as opposed to the topic title.

Edited by omphaloskepsis - January 19 2017 at 13:30

Thee results of the poll itself are meaningless since I set up up the topic title question and poll question at odds with each-other in a joking way since I figured that the topic is quite absurd due to the overwhelming evidence for man's effect on greenhouse warming/ contribution to climate change (and to protect myself from the scorn of people asking such a "duh" thing, I resorted to my usual absurdity which does belie some lack of intellectual honesty at play in my psyche). I'm generally more interested in what people have to say in topics than how they vote in a poll, so the poll works more as a fun accessory to discussion.

I may have already mentioned it, but my family was friends with the inventor of a fuel cell for hybrid vehicles, and was amazed when my wife was talking to him when he said that he was not concerned with fossil fuels effect on climate and did not buy into climate change models that most scientists agree on. He was driven by business models rather than environmental concern.

33.33% of the people here think man-made global warming isn't real.