Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yay, my first post in this guild! Bear with me, I can get convoluted sometimes... xd

From what I have read, the earth goes through cycles of warming and ice age. It has happened many times in the history of our planet, and I doubt there is anything we can do to stop that cycle. It is what killed off the dinosaurs, it is what killed off the neandertals. I will grant, human beings as a whole have been poor stewards of the planet and we have been rushing ourselves to the next Ice Age, bringing us closer to our demise that much sooner, but it is also something we can not stop. It is a foregone conclusion.

This is not to say we should simply give up and let the world as we know it end. I believe whatever we can do to clean up the planet, we should do. If for nothing else than to keep the planet as survivable as possible for as long as possible. But an Ice Age is coming, there is no stopping it, but I'm sure we will survive it as a race, we have once before.

Global Warming is more of a political issue that is broadcast during election years to draw more voters over to the Democrat candidate.

There is actaully evidence that suggests that if we were able to simply cut our fossil fuel consumption in half that the hole in the ozone would heal itself at a faster rate than it is now.

Global warming is a significant increase in the Earth's climatic temperature over a relatively short period of time as a result of the activities of humans.

­ In specific terms, an increase of 1 or more degrees Celsius in a period of one hundred to two hundred years would be considered global warming. Over the course of a single century, an increase of even 0.4 degrees Celsius would be significant. (howstuffworks.com)

It can take thousands of years for the earth's average temperature to rise one degree. Because it has happened so quickly since the Industrial Revolution, it is safe to say that the increase in greenhouse gases produced by humans is the cause of the increase in temperature at this time.

The question is whether this increase in global temperature is harmful. This is not an easy one to answer. Earth's climate is so complex, it is difficult to predict what will happen as temperatures rise. It is true that even 1 degree of change is significant. During the last Ice Age, average global temperatures were only 5 degrees Celsius cooler than they are now. If a 5 degree difference can cause an Ice Age, 1 degree can cause plenty of changes. However, change is not necessarily bad. The earth is pretty adaptable. Changes in temperature could destroy current ecosystems, but that doesn't mean there won't be new ones to take their place. Humans are most concerned with how global warming will effect their own survival. Personally, I don't think we're in much danger of extinction any time soon. We are also pretty adaptable. We may lose large populations to flooding, storms, and droughts, but as a species, we will survive or evolve.

If we are being compassionate and are concerned about the individuals who will suffer as a result of global warming, then we can view it as harmful and will want to do something about it.

It is not possible to completely stop the natural warming trend. However, it is possible for humans to reduce our effect on speeding up the process. Changing national policy may not be feasible at this time, but we can at least do our part individually by following the three "R's":

Reduce
Recycle
Reuse

This mantra has been around at least since I was in Kindergarten in the early 1980's, and it is still the best way to help reduce greenhouse gases and our effect on the climate.

"waste" not "waist".

and carbon credits do not cost you anything, they are part of the private economy, not government.

the word "warming" confuses us if we have a cold winter or something, but it is about the GLOBE and not just where we're at. ...so id the icecaps melt, it sends more ice around the oceans and might temporarily cool some areas, like ice cubes in a drink...but it's all because of melting, which is because of warming.

most of the sites which poo-poo climate change are straw men, fronts for Exxon.
http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2006/11/climate-deniers-liars-for-big-oil.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/05/battle_of_the_c.php
http://www.truthout.org/article/george-monbiot-the-denial-industry
http://infohack.newsvine.com/_news/2008/05/01/1463632-the-fake-list-of-500-scientists-who-doubt-global-warming-

I do not believe in global warming.
B/c of my religon.(Christianity.)
I think the world will end in one way.

But, there is still proof that 'global warming' 'exists'.
But, maybe its not 'global warming', it could be something else.
Theory of mine:
Possible this whole 'global warming' thing is a Government scam. Have any of you been in outer space and seen this changes?
I thing the ozone layers are very strong, adn can hold up all this pollution. All this heat can just be the world evoling maybe.

But, I really do not know, thats my point of view. I may just be in totally doubt.

It really pains me to see people backing up what they believe with historical inaccuracies or horrible comparisons.

The earth is something that is very hard to understand. that along with the effect of the sun etc on the earth leads to a lot of questions and theories.

Historically speaking the earth has gone through a great many changes in temperature. These could be due to many things, such as the shifting of plates causing the flow of the ocean and seas to be altered thus resulting in the temperature changing in the places where the flow of currents has changed.

also historically speaking, there have been many times where the temperature has spiked one way or another. a good example of this is a time commonly referred to as "the little ice age". basically there was a time of warm temperatures and then there was a drop in temperature that was seen quite well due to the longer winters, less of a growing season, etc etc. most research is trying to link this little ice age to solar or volcanic activity.

really and truly ever since humans have walked the earth, and probably even before then, there has been drastically changing temperatures on the earth. You can link human migrations and glacial movements even. So even though we are now part of the reason i think that we can also be part of the solution.

I think that it's rather cowardly to blame past generations, since it's not like they set out with the goal of making the atmosphere look like swiss cheese. our ancestors were trying to make life better for us, their future generations.

something like global warming is hard to really grasp onto and a hard thing to study and come up with hard evidence about anything since it's a pretty broad topic. There are a lot of things to take into account and when we don't have a very long record of historical weather conditions it's hard say for sure if it's a phase the earth goes through or our own fault. in either case i'm rather doubtful that we'll find significant data to back up any sort of theory since there are so many things that we don't know.

Global warming is real, however natural. Yes, human activity is influencing this change, but at a small degree. Maybe a tip for the environmentalists: measure the glacier size and density at the same season as the previous year.