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 Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 3:45 pm
I can guarentee that a vast majority of this guild believes that we are the cause 100% of global warming. However there are some people who believe differently.
I believed 100% that it was us, humans that caused everything. That we had put so much polution into the air that we caused the heating, about a year ago in chemistry class we watched a video that showed another side. Since then I've been on the fence.
I myself am a believer that we are the main cause of global warming but I also think that there is something else going on.
Some believe that global warming is just a natrual occurence, that the earth is just in a pattern of getting hotter and warmer and that we are far too insignificant to cause something like global warming to happen. (Their bassis is mostly that the heating started before the industrial revolution.)
I don't believe that that is true, humans have a huge impact on everything around us. We are such big consumers and we use so much energy. Harnessing the power of energy was a great thing for human kind, but we've become so dependent on it that we use it to an excess.
Others believe that we are a virus to the earth, it's heating up to get rid of things living on it. Can you blame it? We dig holes, takes its minerals, build vast buildings on it and pump gases into its atomosphere. The earth is not a being that can think, but maybe we are damaging it to the point that it's causing things to heat up.
I really don't know what I believe, I think that when we started damaging the earth it began to heat up slowly, we consummed more and then it was just a downward spiral.
No matter what I believe I think the earth is worth protecting, because what if we are wrong? There are so many theories to this, what if it is all us? What if it's too late?
It may seem that I'm really contradictory, but I'm really just very open minded and like to know both sides before deciding what I believe. I think this has become a big social question, so I want to start some discussiong over it.
I'd really like to know what everyone thinks. I also encourage you to do some research and find out things for yourself, I'd like to see what everyone finds.
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Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 5:48 pm
I'm actually doing a class speech on global warming denial. =D
The truth of the matter is that global warming is a natural process - it's called the greenhouse effect. Basically there's a certain type of gases in the atmosphere, called greenhouse gases (or GHGs). Among these is carbon dioxide, or CO2. GHGs take the heat we receive from the sun and trap it in the Earth's atmosphere, thus warming the Earth. It's important and absolutely necessary - without it we would be completely frozen over.
The burning of fossil fuels, our main source of energy, releases CO2 into the atmosphere. Since we humans have been burning up fossil fuels excessively for our electricity-run lives, we've been pumping out more and more CO2 into the atmosphere. Now we see the effects. (For a more extensive definition, go to the 2nd post of this thread.)
Scientists have pretty much all agreed that global warming is real, is primarily caused by us, and that we can do something to at least slow it down to a level that species can properly adapt to. But denial still exists, for some reason. The basis of that reason lies in - you guessed it - the Bush administration.
Bush has strong ties with big-oil companies, which are reliant on burning fossil fuels. So he did everything to create an air of denial towards global warming. He appointed oil-lobbyist Phil Cooney as the primary environmental advisor, in charge of the global warming issue. After revising scientists' publications about this issue and completely canceling others, he left the White House to go work for Exxon Mobil.
Both Bush and Exxon have paid certain scientists to claim that either global warming isn't real, isn't harmful, or that we are not responsible (or that it would take too much of a toll on the economy or that it's too late to do anything about it). And all of that, frankly, is bullshit.
Unfortunately they've succeeded quite well. If you ask any one of my classmates about what they know of global warming, they'll tell you it has something to do with pollution, that it's supposedly bad...and that they don't even think it's real.
Some other organizations that deny GW:
The Heartland Institute
Friends of Science
AWESOME videos (GO SEE GO SEE GO SEE):
The Denial Machine - A Canadian documentary on how the entire debate started. VERY informative and helpful, includes interviews with skeptics (who have never published anything that's peer-reviewed, BTW).
Toast the Earth - A hilarious video about Exxon brought to you by the Defenders of Wildlife. This video was actually posted as a link somewhere in this guild a long time ago. xd
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