Yes, Virginia, we are responsible for climate change
For what its scientists say is the first time ever, a study has directly linked climate change's effects to human behavior (the closest another study has come is in a 2007 UN report, which stated that human-induced warming was "likely" to have an effect on Earth's systems. The researchers analyzed published data on 829 physical systems like melting glaciers and warming bodies of water, as well as 28,800 living plant and animal systems within the past few decades. And in 95% of the physical systems and 90 percent of the plant and animal systems, the changes were consistent with the predicted effects of a warming climate. One scientist called it "highly unlikely" that the changes were due to anything other than human effects.
And others are worried about the amount of change that has occurred with just a one degree increase in temperature: cannibalistic polar bears, melting glaciers, and earlier-blooming plants, to name a few.
What say you now, naysayers?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-18-2008 @ 8:17PM
Paulidan said...
Except temperature, I mean, only a super retard denier would think that temperature would be the prime gauge of "warming".
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5-19-2008 @ 2:54PM
Kelly said...
Practical, your arguments are valid; however they might not be correct in the end. Consider how hard it was to gather "proof" that the earth was in fact round. Unfortunately, to test the hypothesis that global warming is man-made, people would have to be controlled in every activity. Such an experiment is impractical if not impossible. The hypothesis which remains to be satisfactorily tested may be correct despite scientists' struggles to generalize their data. Second, I absolutely agree that humans are arrogant. However, humility is not simply defined as denial of our own mass effect on our surroundings. Humility is a virtue to be summoned to other problems we vivaciously propogate.
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5-19-2008 @ 6:49PM
John said...
The UN, now there's a reliable group. Aren't they the same ones who claimed the warmest decade was the 1990's when really it was the 1930's when the data was properly filtered? A first year math student could have gotten that right.
I still find it laughable that some "scientists" think they can model global temperature changes based on a few decades of data when the actual sample size is millions of times larger. A temperate change of +/- a few degrees is well within the standard deviation of the natural cycle of rising and falling temperature's.
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5-21-2008 @ 2:41AM
Practical said...
2 things:
1. Nowhere in this post or the National Geographic Article is there proof that the warming is man-made.
2. The Earth has always and will always warm and cool, it is the natural cycle of things. Have you heard of the Ice Ages? The earth freezes for a while, then steadily warms until the next Ice Age. It is the height of egotism the believes man has any effect on the earth, it is a self regulating system. When it gets warm enough, it will start to cool.
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