In my thread "Will You Vote Republican," somebody who goes by Vigilante sent me a reply that seems to refute the whole human caused global warming thing. But I thought my reply is something that you would all like to weigh in on.
Each year, all the volcanoes on earth put out an estimated 200 MILLION tons of CO2. Though some of this of course goes directly into the oceans. Humans on the other hand are responsible for an estimated 26.8 BILLION tons per year. Also, anybody who wishes to can look up a graph of the ammount of CO2 humans have put out since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Lately, human generated CO2 appears to be going up at a rate that is beyond exponential. There is a good chance that temperatures will follow suit.
This past summer, temperatures were fairly cool around where I live. But from what I have seen, if there are cooler temperatures in one area, it means that temperatures are hotter in another area of the earth.
I have a sister who is a human caused global warming denier. She points that in the far distant past, atmospheric CO2 levels were much higher than they are now. Which is true. Around one hundred million years ago or so, they were much higher. Apparently because of the breakup of the continents, things have been cooling down over a long time. Causing many ice ages. But as far as I have seen, this isn't something that happened a very long time ago. When global CO2 levels were much higher. We are in uncharted territory. No doubt there is much more methane in places like frozen tundra or shallow seas than there was in the far past. And methane is 20 times better at causing global warming than CO2. Just how much warming will it take for that to start getting released in ever greater quantity. It's hard to say. But there is one thing I know for sure. Most people don't really care what happens. As long as it happens to someone else.
So is there a mass conspiracy to pull the wool over the world’s eyes? It seems highly unlikely, considering the numerous studies that show
overwhelming consensus among respected scientists that anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming is indisputable.
at least 97 percent believe in anthropogenic climate change
The study says that the few "contrarian" scientists are a vocal, but small, minority. They also found that those scientists denying human-caused climate change tend to have less expertise in the subject than those who believe in it.
Another survey out of the University of Illinois found that 82 percent of earth scientists (out of more than 3,000 respondents) believe that global temperature shifts are human-caused. Among climate-specific earth scientists who responded, 97.4 percent said they believe in human-caused climate change.
"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes,"