Global Warming: Not a Hoax

Man made global warming, also known as Anthropogenic Climate Change, is the increase in global temperatures that has been occurring since the industrial revolution. Global warming is an increase in the global temperature. Even though some geographic locations see no increase in temperature or a decrease in temperature, doesn't mean that the overall temperature of the planet is not increasing.

What Causes Global warming?

Although it is true that the earth"s climate has changed many times in the past, the climate has never changed as quickly as it has since the Industrial Revolution. This is because Mankind's behavior has drastically affected our environment. Global warming is caused by greenhouse gasses, such as carbon dioxide(C02), methane(C04), and nitrous oxide, trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere. The largest contributor to global warming is C02. Scientists have determined that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is far too great to have come from natural sources alone. Yet the deniers still claim that it's not from human activity even though a majority of scientists disagree with them. Most of the deniers are not even scientists, and if they are they usually are petroleum geologists, Meteorologists, or from other fields in which climate is in no way their expertise. The majority of deniers are having their research funded by the, oil gas, and coal industries. Why would the fossil fuel industry pour so much money into convincing Americans that global warming doesn't exist? Because a majority of the C02 emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels.The corporations claim that any effort to regulate them would put the industry in jeopardy even though it's a trillion dollar industry and most of the companies get subsidies from the government.

Scientific Consensus

There is a scientific consensus among the world's prominent scientists. 97 percent of scientists agree that global warming is real and is primarily caused by human activity. Skeptics will tell you that a consensus doesn't mean anything or that a consensus isn't scientific scientific. If that many scientists agree on it, you can be pretty sure that the science has been settled. There is no debate within the scientific community, Unless you call 97 percent of scientists against 3 percent a debate. I see no reason to believe that these scientists have a reason to deceive us.

The obvious main effect of global warming is, of course, rising temperatures. These rising temperatures are already causing the polar Ice caps to melt, which is slowly causing rise in sea levels. The timing of changes of seasons is being affected, such as unseasonable weather occurring. Because Climate change causes fluctuations of hot and cold weather, it is more likely for extreme weather events to happen, due to the convergence of abnormal hot an cold fronts. Even though it is difficult to link any one extreme weather event to global warming, increasing global temperatures seem to correspond with the increase of frequency of extreme weather events. Also the warming has caused changes in agricultural productivity, which in the future may have a drastic effect on the food supply.

Natural Carbon sinks and Acidification of the Oceans

What is a carbon sink? According to Fern, a carbon sink is is anything that absorbs more carbon that it releases. Examples of Natural sinks include, trees, the oceans, soil, and even animals. These sinks help keep carbon out of the air. The oceans act as sinks by absorbing some of the carbon dioxide out of the air. The problem is that the oceans have been Absorbing more c02 then they were ever meant to. This is causing the introduction of carbonic acid into the ocean's habitat. The acidification of the oceans is weakening the shells and exoskeletons of marine animals, since carbonic acid eats through calcium. This is having the greatest affect on coral. Coral, crabs and other shellfish, have an outer shell made up of calcium. This calcium is being diminished by the carbon. Coral reefs are a very large part of our oceans' biodiversity. If we lose the coral reefs, we will lose a lot of the life in our oceans. This will send our ecosystem spiraling out of control. This is why it is more proper to call it climate change, because all this excess c02 is affecting the entire climate, not just global temperatures. This is very serious and so many people are being swindled by politicians, and other popular climate deniers who are being funded big fossil fuels. We have these owners and investors of fossil fuel corporations that think short term profits are more important than the long term damage it is doing to this planet. They think it will only affect future generations. The problem is, that as the years go by it seems that many of us will see extreme effects from this within our lifetime.

I will list and briefly discuss common arguments made by deniers. I will explain why these arguments are invalid

1. The climate has always changed and is natural

One argument that you will hear is that the climate has always been changing. Although this is true, global climate changes that occur naturally, occur over long time periods, usually taking hundreds of thousands of years. The amount of global warming since industrialization is unprecedented. There is plenty of evidence that suggests human activity is the prime contributor to our current phase of warming.

2. It's the sun stupid!

Many Anthropogenic Global warming(AGW) deniers will claim that the sun is the main cause of warming. Even though this may appear to sound like common sense, it just isn't scientific. To illustrate the flaw in this argument lets take the planets Mercury and Venus for example. Mercury is Closer to the sun than Venus. If the argument is correct, Mercury should be hotter than Venus, but it is not. Venus is hotter than mercury because of the green house effect. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of Venus are trapping heat. Therefore climate has a greater affect on global temperature than the sun. Now lets get back down to Earth. In the past 35 years the sun has been showing a slight cooling trend, while the global temperature keeps rising.

3. Global warming has paused for the past 15 years

The problem here is a misunderstanding of terminology. The pause the scientists are referring to is not a halt in warming. It is simply a slowing down of rising temperature. It is still warming, just not as fat as in previous decades. either way this past decade has been the hottest on record.The cause of this slowing down, is cool cycles in ocean temperature. The pause is expected to end within the next few decades.

4. The climate is cooling

The climate is not cooling. 2000-2009 is the hottest decade on record.

5. Global warming happened before, During the Medieval Warm Period

This again is a false presumption. The Medieval Warm Period, was not a global event. It was a period of warm climate in the North Atlantic between 950 and 1250 A.D. It is used as an attempt to disprove AGW, it was merely a regional event; and during this period, temperatures were much lower than current temperatures.

The Heartland Institute

Before we get into listing and discussing climate deniers, We will talk about an organization that is one of the largest funders of the AGWD(Anthropogenic Global Warming Denier) crowd, The Heartland institute. The Heartland Institute is a conservative and libertarian think tank. Besides funding global warming denialism the have a history of activities such as lobbying for Philip Morris and the rest of the Tobacco industry. It took a central role in trying to cast doubt on the link between second hand smoke and cancer. They are also against regulating the medical industry. They are for tort reform, which basically makes it impossible for patients to sue doctors for malpractice. Yes, they of course lobbied against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act(Obamacare.)They are also pro-fracking. The Heartland Institute has received much of it's funding from the Koch brothers, ExxonMobil and other members of the fossil fuel industry. As you can see is a real gem of an organization.

Now let's now turn to a list of prominent AGW deniers.

1.Freeman Dyson

Let's start With Freeman Dyson. He isn't really a global warming denier, although the AGWD crowd claims he is. He does agree that global warming is real and is caused by human activity. He merely disagrees with the accuracy of the climate models.

2. Richard A. Muller

Richard A. Muller is a former climate denier. He has a phd in physics.He reviewed the science and then decided that he agreed that climate change is caused by human activity. While he was a spokesman against AGW, he received much of his funding from the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation.

3. Jim Inhoffe

Jim Inhoffe is a Republican senator from Oklahoma. He denies that human activity is responsible for global warming. His campaign funding comes primarily from the oil and gas industries, and electrical utilities. The Koch brothers are his largest donors.

4. David Icke

David Icke has no scientific background. He is a blogger and popular author of various books on conspiracy theories. He is most known for his "Reptoid Hypothesis," in which he claims that lizard people secretly rule the earth. Apparently so secret only he knew about it.

5.Roy Spencer

Roy Spencer is a Meteorologist. He claims that the "Little Ice Ages" in previous centuries disprove global warming. The problem is that they were merely regional phenomena and not global. Spencer signed "An evangelical Declaration on Global warming," which basically sates that global warming will not destroy the planet, because god won't let it. He once told the Anti-Defamation League, that people who call climate skeptics global warming deniers are at par with the Nazis. He is also an advocate of Intelligent design, which is a good indicator of how seriously he takes science.

6. Bjorn Lomborg

Bjorn Lomborg is not a scientists, although his fans often incorrectly refer to him as a scientist. He is the author of several books on climate skepticism. He has often claimed to be more knowledgeable about global warming than climate scientists. yet according to climate scientists, he has the science all wrong.

This is just a handful of colorful characters on the other side of the global warming "debate."

I have given you a some basic knowledge on the science of global warming, the arguments deniers make, and some basic background information on some prominent global warming deniers. Below are some useful links to basic resources on Anthropogenic Global Warming, as well as links to information on AGW deniers and links to a few of their websites. Remember don't just take my word for it. Do your own research and make up you own mind.