There has been a lot of debate about human activity and its affect on Climate.   In your opinion, do you believe that human activity is having a significant impact on the climate?

 

Please feel free to leave a comment.

 

Here are some recent threads related to the issue:

https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/994628-flooding-in-thailand-and-asia-more-misery-on-the-way-as-monsoon%C2%A0season-hits-the-region/

https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/992181-giant-iceberg-breaks-off-antarctica/

 

We affect the quality of the air for sure, but climate change has been doing exactly that for millions of years. It's a good way to collect taxes though! 

just an excuse to levy more taxes , the worlds climate is constantly changing , but try telling that to the 'greenys"

I do think I will follow the opinion of 97% of the world's scientists.

as with most things, we humans tend to exaggerate our effect (and importance) in the universe. man's existence over the earth's timeline is but a fraction of a blink of an eye. whatever "change" we are observing right now may well be a spike in a cycle, which will go down and up in a cycle ad infinitum. 

Governments used to collect taxes to give its citizens protection from enemies. As there are no real enemies now, except floods of migrants, and no wars then there needs to be a reason to levy taxes. 

I voted but I would have used different words to express my opinion. I would say that humans are causing an unmeasurable impact on the climate, meaning that it can't be determined because there are too many variables. Also that it cannot be determined if the impact is beneficial or harmful. And also that there is no evidence that any corrective changes can be beneficial or are possible. Except to the economies of certain groups. Climate change as it is being presented today is basically a Trojan horse for wealth redistribution and cultural Marxism

What I would suggest is to continue to limit the use of known pollutants and environmental unfriendly practices like destroying ecosystems and to continue to discover new ways to reuse what we have in the most efficient ways. Obviously we are learning at an unprecedented pace and eventually the real answers will become self evident.

I think a major world war is 1000's of times more likely than a climate apocalypse,

24 minutes ago, wwest5829 said:

I do think I will follow the opinion of 97% of the world's scientists.

To complete that sentence ,

who depend on trying to prove it  true to still get funding.

41 minutes ago, bert bloggs said:

To complete that sentence ,

who depend on trying to prove it  true to still get funding.

So, they're devoting their lives to living a lie? Such nonsense.

1 hour ago, chrissables said:

We affect the quality of the air for sure, but climate change has been doing exactly that for millions of years. It's a good way to collect taxes though! 

Yes, climate has been changing for millions of years. But this is about rate of change and direction of change.

It’s Not Your Imagination. Summers Are Getting Hotter.

Extraordinarily hot summers — the kind that were virtually unheard-of in the 1950s — have become commonplace.

This year’s scorching summer events, like heat waves rolling through southern Europe and temperatures nearing 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Pakistan, are part of this broader trend.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/28/climate/more-frequent-extreme-summer-heat.html

Troll post removed.

To all you deniers above. 

Do you have any idea about the science of radiation? Please investigate the laws of Stefan-Boltzmann and of Wien.

The effect of green house gases is known since Arrhenius (1896). It explains the earth's high temperature (15°C in stead of -18°C if no green house gases are present).

The amount of excess radiation due to increased carbon dioxide can be calculated. This appears to be a small amount (1‰ of the solar radiation).

As the coming and going of ice ages show, minor changes in the influx of radiation (due to shifts in the earth's orbit) can have profound effects on the earth's climate. The mechanism has become clear: there are big positive feedbacks that strengthen the effect of the initial small changes.

 

I think that a discussion about global warming should focus on the science of the process, not on politics. Anyone is entitled to his opinion but I only take an opinion seriously that is based on sound scientific concepts.

 

Especially Americans seem to be reluctant to accept science. I don't understand why. Is it because of their educational system?

I think it is interesting that in the 80s/90's we became aware of cfc's and the hole in the ozone layer there seemed a global consensus that efforts needed to be made to stop cfc's and I believe it has been successful with the hole decreasing each year. I was never aware of anyone questioning the existence of the ozone hole or the effectiveness of decreasing cfc's. Move forward to the climate change issue and people seem to have a completely different attitude saying it is a hoax, the scientists are wrong... Has the general public become alot more intelligent in that they know better or is it just that they have read about "the climate change hoax" on Google ? I don't have children or grandcchildren but if I did I would feel pretty bad saying to them "Yes I know we have destroyed the environment with pollution but at the time we were told climate change was a hoax and we believed it" I realize that it could be a hoax but is it really worth taking the risk of ignoring it to prove it? At very least I think it is worth paying more just to breathe cleaner air when I walk down the street.

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5 minutes ago, aonangkrabi said:

<snipped>

I think that a discussion about global warming should focus on the science of the process, not on politics. Anyone is entitled to his opinion but I only take an opinion seriously that is based on sound scientific concepts.

 

Especially Americans seem to be reluctant to accept science. I don't understand why. Is it because of their educational system?

 

I don't think it is a rejection of science, although some of the very fundamental religious folks, do reject science because it contradicts the Bible.   The big problem is that it became politicized.   Al Gore, a Democrat, was a driving force -- at least in the political arena.  Now, the issue is polarized between many of the Democrats and the Republicans.  

21 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

Yes, climate has been changing for millions of years. But this is about rate of change and direction of change.

It’s Not Your Imagination. Summers Are Getting Hotter.

Extraordinarily hot summers — the kind that were virtually unheard-of in the 1950s — have become commonplace.

This year’s scorching summer events, like heat waves rolling through southern Europe and temperatures nearing 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Pakistan, are part of this broader trend.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/28/climate/more-frequent-extreme-summer-heat.html

At the peak of the last hot cycle, what were the temperatures? 70 years ago is nothing in the life of the world.

4 minutes ago, chrissables said:

At the peak of the last hot cycle, what were the temperatures? 70 years ago is nothing in the life of the world.

Once again, it's not about just change, it's about rate of change.

Those who do not believe in man made global warming must also believe

that pollution of the worlds oceans with plastic is also a hoax. After all they

are simply too big and can certainly take everything we dump in it. Just look

at the air pollution in Beijing, India, Indonesia, if you think we cant affect the

atmosphere.  

1 hour ago, wwest5829 said:

I do think I will follow the opinion of 97% of the world's scientists.

Normally, I would agree completely with you...except that once I entered academia (admittedly in a soft science of psychology & genetics) I saw research from an entirely different perspective...for example, in my field, the overwhelming evidence indicates without exception that race differences in personality and intelligence are genetic in origin...and this relationship determines the outcomes we see in society...if you even try to say this, you are branded a racist and likely to be unemployed rather quickly...also, there is still uniform evidence that vaccines have no relationship with autism or developmental disorders, but plenty of scientists were happy to accept grant money and such to espouse the dangers of vaccines...amazingly, scientists will distort data, and the general media will emphasize a liberal pov, even in the face of real credible evidence to the contrary...moreover, I doubt many scientists who weigh in on the climate change controversy actual do research in this area...I was one of about 20 people who did research on IQ and race, and about 90% accepted the conclusions of our research...whenever the issue came up in the media, none of us would be contacted...it would always be someone who held a differing opinion, but had very little true experience or expertise...so the "majority" of scientists who comment on the matter probably know very little about climate change...they simply say what is popular or favorable...or they are trying to get money (Al Gore is a perfect hypocrite)...for me, I think that people probably have had an impact on climate change...after all so have cow and pig farts...the real question is what to do about, if anything...

24 minutes ago, Scott said:

 

I don't think it is a rejection of science, although some of the very fundamental religious folks, do reject science because it contradicts the Bible.   The big problem is that it became politicized.   Al Gore, a Democrat, was a driving force -- at least in the political arena.  Now, the issue is polarized between many of the Democrats and the Republicans.  

There was a time when both Republicans and Democrats accepted that global warming was taking place  It was the Republicans who politicized it. Remember that it was Republicans who came up with a free-market solution to power plant pollution problems. It was called cap and trade. Now they've reversed course and are opposed to it.

Let's try to stay on topic and, although many of our members are American, it is far from all, so let's try to leave US Politics out of the discussion as much as possible.  

2 minutes ago, Scott said:

Let's try to stay on topic and, although many of our members are American, it is far from all, so let's try to leave US Politics out of the discussion as much as possible.  

Well, you did bring it up. And the fact is that it's only in the USA that there is this kind of strong political opposition to the fact of anthropogenic global warming. In most of the world, it's not a political issue at all.

39 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

Yes, climate has been changing for millions of years. But this is about rate of change and direction of change.

It’s Not Your Imagination. Summers Are Getting Hotter.

Extraordinarily hot summers — the kind that were virtually unheard-of in the 1950s — have become commonplace.

This year’s scorching summer events, like heat waves rolling through southern Europe and temperatures nearing 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Pakistan, are part of this broader trend.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/28/climate/more-frequent-extreme-summer-heat.html

It's hotter, we don't need new types of graphs. I think we all know that +0.7 degrees represents an increase. It would have been the same increase since 1930, but your graph starts in the 80's. The fact that it is hotter is meaningless because it is always hotter or colder a couple of decades down the road. I don't see anything that includes the fact that we are still coming out of an ice age in your propaganda piece. Perhaps that fundamental fact was accidentally left off.

Just now, canuckamuck said:

It's hotter, we don't need new types of graphs. I think we all know that +0.7 degrees represents an increase. It would have been the same increase since 1930, but your graph starts in the 80's. The fact that it is hotter is meaningless because it is always hotter or colder a couple of decades down the road. I don't see anything that includes the fact that we are still coming out of an ice age in your propaganda piece. Perhaps that fundamental fact was accidentally left off.

Once again, it's not about change. It's about rate of change.  It's not about change. It's about rate of change.  It's not about change. It's about rate of change. 

 

“The rate at which we’re injecting CO₂ into the atmosphere today, according to our best estimates, is 10 times faster than it was during the End-Permian,” the paleoclimatologist Lee Kump, dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State, told me. “And rates matter. So today we’re creating a very difficult environment for life to adapt, and we’re imposing that change maybe 10 times faster than the worst events in earth’s history.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/29/opinion/sunday/when-life-on-earth-was-nearly-extinguished.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

Well, you did bring it up. And the fact is that it's only in the USA that there is this kind of strong political opposition to the fact of anthropogenic global warming. In most of the world, it's not a political issue at all.

Australia politically was at the forefront of action but then a 'flat earther' opposition leader and Rupert Murdoch's newspapers ran a very effective campaign based on "toxic tax"(carbon pricing). Carbon pricing was removed and now energy policy is floundering. The government withdrew the tax on big polluters so have lost income that could have been used for cleaner power. They want to build coal powered power stations but cannot find finance for pollution and the overseas companies that own the power stations are closing them as they are getting too old and inefficient . The alternative energy industry was taking of but without government subsidies has subsided and as a result power prices have skyrocketed.

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"just an excuse to levy more taxes , the worlds climate is constantly changing , but try telling that to the 'greenys"  ?

 

taxes go to scientists pockets ?!!! ??

only republicans and followers don't like the idea, because most of industries that caused climate change owned by republican politicians & supporters. 

Even a high school geography teacher can explain global warming. 

Is that this weeks mantra? Rate of change? Is that the memo from Big Green head quarters?

The rate of change has been much greater at different times and it was not human caused. So until you can show a relationship that eliminates natural variables as the cause, you are just projecting your favorite hypothesis.

20 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

Well, you did bring it up. And the fact is that it's only in the USA that there is this kind of strong political opposition to the fact of anthropogenic global warming. In most of the world, it's not a political issue at all.

I shall now crawl back under the rock where I was hiding!

Perhaps the next poll should be about whether the Earth revolves around the sun or vice-versa?  How about one on gravity, we all know that's just a theory right?  How about this for a poll: Which is larger, five or thirteen?  Do hats exist, yes or no?  (Thanks to John Oliver for those last two)

2 hours ago, canuckamuck said:

I voted but I would have used different words to express my opinion. I would say that humans are causing an unmeasurable impact on the climate, meaning that it can't be determined because there are too many variables. Also that it cannot be determined if the impact is beneficial or harmful. And also that there is no evidence that any corrective changes can be beneficial or are possible. Except to the economies of certain groups. Climate change as it is being presented today is basically a Trojan horse for wealth redistribution and cultural Marxism

What I would suggest is to continue to limit the use of known pollutants and environmental unfriendly practices like destroying ecosystems and to continue to discover new ways to reuse what we have in the most efficient ways. Obviously we are learning at an unprecedented pace and eventually the real answers will become self evident.

I think a major world war is 1000's of times more likely than a climate apocalypse,

So in other words you are clueless about what is happening but are not prepared to trust the scientific  community, "because". Your user name reflects a Canadian but you sound like a Yank so I will put you down as from Alberta.

52 minutes ago, Scott said:

 

I don't think it is a rejection of science, although some of the very fundamental religious folks, do reject science because it contradicts the Bible.   The big problem is that it became politicized.   Al Gore, a Democrat, was a driving force -- at least in the political arena.  Now, the issue is polarized between many of the Democrats and the Republicans.  

Al Gore would give a speech on the topic saying how important it is that we react quickly to global warming, then he would get in his private plane and fly back to his huge house in Tennessee, leaving a large carbon footprint in his wake. It's impossible to leave politics out of it. I see it as a way to raise taxes.