What is your position on climate change as it relates to AGW (anthropogenic global warming)?

Hold on. Let me ask Matt Browne.

:)

http://www.realclimate.org/

The same as my position on gravity and the first law of thermodynamics.

From the United States EPA website

I think the preponderance of evidence supports the hypothesis that we are contributing to climate change, and that this climate change is very bad news.

And even if that hypothesis is wrong, finding clean, renewable energy sources doesn’t sound like such a bad idea to me.

I think it is likely that mankind is “contributing to” an accumulation of atmospheric gases (including carbon dioxide, but more importantly, methane and water vapor) which affects the climate—and which is also “affected by” the climate. I do not agree that there is enough evidence that “we are at fault” (or even that “fault” is a proper way to describe the change that is undoubtedly occurring). I am also not satisfied that the cause and effect relationship is well enough understood to be able to say that “we are adding carbon dioxide and other gases” or “carbon dioxide and other gases are accumulating in the atmosphere because of changes we don’t yet understand, which are also raising atmospheric temperatures”.

Since ice core and other studies have shown that CO2 levels have been far higher than they are now before mankind even appeared on the planet, it’s not good science to assume that “we caused this, because nothing else could have”. And since side-by-side studies of temperature and CO2 levels over time have shown that rising temperatures have occurred (many times) years prior to the rising CO2 levels, I’m not at all certain that we understand the cause-and-effect relationship yet.

But I’m drowned out by a lot of people who shout much louder that the sky is definitely falling!” And I don’t argue with them.

@CyanoticWasp
But it’s just so abundantly clear to see the correlation between the rise of industrialization and the rapid growth rate of cities and the rise in temperature.

Does it matter why it is happening as long as we all do our bit to stop polluting the planet?
Is it going to make a difference if I say “I believe?” I don’t think so, but I think what @nikipedia said is very true, “finding clean, renewable energy sources doesn’t sound like such a bad idea to me.” We have to elect leaders who are dedicated to that purpose. Not the ones who have stock in oil companies and therefore have a different agenda.

It is getting like the god/atheist debate going on in another thread. It is so polarizing.

Let’s stop arguing about whether we believe or not and just get on with doing our part as individuals (I can’t control anyone except me) to stop it or at least slow it.

I just hope I don’t have to foot the entire bill.

In terms of human assisted Global Warming my position leans more toward the DNE proposition.

DOES NOT EXIST

@roeeytoo
Yes and no. The fact is that if the knowledge of our brightest and most objective voices is not heeded we are operating from a place of ignorance. The knowledge of Global warming and our involvement in it is plain from unbiased scientists. The previous administration tried to obfuscate this because of industrial and commercial greed but this does not change the fact that the world at large is well aware of the causes and the solutions. So yes acknowledging it is paramount to the expediency and urgency of how fast we must act.

@SeventhSense Correlation, yes, but not necessarily causation. Because millions of years before industrialization—and several times—temperatures rose, followed by rising levels of CO2. The mechanism isn’t understood, but the sequence was clear. Even in those cases it’s not established that higher temperature somehow “caused” higher CO2 levels, only that the higher gas levels followed the higher temperatures.

Maybe this cycle is different. Perhaps this time mankind is causing the higher temperatures. It’s not yet certain. What is absolutely certain is that attempting to reverse this by somehow reversing our economies is going to starve a lot of people. And may not be effective in any case.

On the other hand, are higher average global temperatures (in the fairly narrow range that serious scientists are discussing) really a catastrophe? Let’s stipulate that the polar ice caps and Greenland’s ice cover all melt and sea levels do rise to flood coastal flood plains. It’s not like that’ll happen with tsunami-like speed; people will have a chance to decide to relocate—and they’ll do that.

I read an article a couple of years ago that put some of the “warming” talk into perspective. There was a study of the massive and catastrophic heat wave that hit all of Europe in 2005, killing about 5000 people across the continent. That is a catastrophe, I will admit.

The study went on to demonstrate that in an average winter (and the range of winters studied was a pretty wide one, several decades at least) approximately 50,000 people in Great Britain (only GB) die as a direct result of cold weather and winter storms. Isn’t that also a catastrophe? It’s ‘normal’, so no one makes much of an issue of it, but wouldn’t it be nice to reduce that figure by an order of magnitude… compounded across the whole Northern Hemisphere?

I don’t claim to have any of the answers, but I have a lot more questions than are being adequately, sensibly or quietly explained by everyone on the bandwagon beating the drums.

@SeventhSense – Your response is precisely the attitude that I think is distracting from mounting a concerted effort to address the actual situation at hand.

I don’t like being told what I must believe. There are no absolutes in my world and I obviously am not alone in those feelings.

I think the effort should be going into implementing a solution (if there is one) and not on making me fall in behind you waving my flag that says ” These guys are 100% correct and I believe.”

Well we have to acknowledge the problem if we are to move forward. If the world at large is readily accepting the problem and implementing the solution yet the nations with the greatest sacrifice to make are not doing so then that is the problem. It’s not an emotional decision nor a matter of faith. It is simply acting upon the preponderance of evidence. If one is told that their house will be inundated with lava that is flowing down the street and one fails to move due to outrage then that is not intelligence but ignorance and neglect of the entire planet.

Pointing out that temperatures have risen and fallen in the past has nothing to do with AGW.

Your living room has been hotter and colder in the past than it is now. Nevertheless, if you light a fire on your living room floor, your living room will still get hotter.

@rooeytoo, actually, there are absolutes in the world. For example, it is absolutely true that the earth revolves around the sun. This came as a surprise to a lot of people, and a lot of people didn’t like to be told that it was true. But facts don’t really care about what people want to believe, that’s what makes them facts.

I agree with you that nobody likes to be told how to think. Nobody likes to be called wrong. But that’s too bad, because people are wrong, and acting victimized and oppressed at this is typically just a way to avoid having to rationally defend the AGW-skeptic position.

And there won’t be a solution until people understand and acknowledge what the problem is.

@CyanoticWasp, I don’t think global warming is going to threaten the earth, or even human civilization. Life always finds a way to adapt; humans especially. Wealthy Westerners with lots of technology and mobile economies especially.

But for poor farmers in places like Africa—which are already impoverished but under global warming scenarions will become even drier—they will not be able to adjust as easily. Neither will people living in poor, coastal areas. And it’s a humanitarian crisis waiting to happen. I don’t even think that global warming can be fully reversed at this point, but we need to work on mitigating its effects, because we are frankly not equipped to deal with the refugee crisis that it is almost certainly going to cause. That crisis will make any economic adjustment to lower CO2 levels pale in comparison, by the way.

@Qingu
Your living room has been hotter and colder in the past than it is now. Nevertheless, if you light a fire on your living room floor, your living room will still get hotter.
and that of course would be an Anthropogenic cause exactly like Global Warming. The skeptical arguments are created by powerful industrial lobbies.

The world is an interependent ecosystem. Immense global change that occurs on one side of the planet will invariably effect the whole system eventually. Not that it’s ethical anyway to ignore the plight of millions.

You guys argue it out, I am going to the atheist vs god fearing thread. More of the totally my way or no way mentality.

@Qingu Thanks for a reasoned response.

I agree completely that the migrations that will be required in places like Oceania and Bangladesh, to name a couple, will be very upsetting events and difficult to mitigate, because rising water levels would force a migration. But I don’t agree that we can even make a valid prediction about what’s going to happen in Africa. Maybe the Sahara will spread… and maybe they’ll get rainfall. If the ice melts from Greenland and temperatures moderate, there should certainly be a lot of migration that way. Northern China, Siberia and Canada could be very hospitable as “temperate” regions. They aren’t particularly well suited to human populations now.

I’m just throwing these out as “f’r instance” observations. I’m still not buying into the anthropogenic origin of global warming / climate change, and for that reason I don’t yet agree that cessation of activity or wrenching change in our energy consumption and production modes could reverse it.

Maybe not reverse it but slow it down.

@CyanoticWasp, I agree that our prediction for desertification in Africa is not 100% certain (and yes, Canada is going to look very nice in the widely accepted scenarios, so global warming may not even result in a net loss of arable space).

We can’t be 100% certain about anything. Cimate models are inherently chaotic.

What is relatively certain is that our actions are making the climate change at a very fast pace. The problem with this is not the change—all life and all civilization can adapt to change. The problem is that we know it’s going to change so fast that many, many people (and many, many species) are not going to be able to adapt in time.

The exact details of the changes are important to try to work out, imperfect though they may be. But they are less important than acknowledging that injecting rapid change into a massive, complex, chaotic system is going to be shitty for a lot of people, no matter what the specifics are.

And I don’t understand why you don’t buy the anthropocentric origin. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We have tripled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in the past century or so. What exactly are you disputing here? Are you arguing that CO2 is not as powerful of a greenhouse gas as almost all climate scientists say it is? Or are you arguing that we haven’t actually been burning that much CO2? (Either of those arguments can be addressed with facts.)

There have been so many recent climate change questions on Fluther, it’s hard to keep track and it also doesn’t make sense to repeat all of the more detailed answers already made. @Critter38 is very knowledge for example. Here are the key messages

1) There is no 100% correct prediction about the climate in 2050 – climate is too complex
2) Human greenhouse gas emissions most likely contribute to global warming
3) It’s quite possible that natural cycles contribute as well
4) A few warm winters or cool summers are no proof against the continuing overall trend
5) The vast majority of reputable climatologists think that the potential harm is enormous
6) Humanity would be very stupid not to apply the precautionary principle
7) The growing middle class in Asia will significantly affect supply and demand equation for fossil fuels
8) To create welfare for all world citizens we simply have no other choice than to invest in green technology
9) The unfortunate climate change denial movement is most active in the US. This is bad news for the US, but good news for the rest of the world because innovation will happen elsewhere and the US will eventually have to import new green technology products. A nation of consumers instead of producers. Unless reason prevails. And there’s hope. Above all, there’s Barack Obama’s audacity of hope.

@mattbrowne
Thanks for the salient points. We really should all, at the least be using solar panels to offset the cost of fossil fuels. Even if it’s not a complete solution it just makes sense.