Do you believe in global warming/the climate shift now?

I am one of those people who likes to believe in scientists empirical view. Many scientists do not believe that this is global warming more more of some kind of natural cycle of the earth. There isn't really a way to tell since the records for a cyclical change are not easy to find.

There are many reports from scientists that are ignored or downplayed by the media because saying that the world will have a 15 degree shift by the end of the decade will sell more papers than a 1 degree shift or half a degree. So, while there are climate changes, some places having the warmest this, other places having the coldest that, we don't know if these are natural cycles, greenhouse effect or some unfortunate combination of the two. However, in saying that, I also know that science is rather dogmatic in their beliefs until forced to change.

Thomas Kuhn's, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, outlines how science likes to propagate its own beliefs and staunchly defends them even in the light of new, better information. Scientists train their students to believe what is already there. Yes we like to think they are using the scientific method, and they like to think that they are purely objective (which of course there is no such thing), but they are in fact merely replicating themselves every time in new students that come into the field.

Kuhn of course does a much better job at explaining this so here is an outline of the book for those interested: des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html The easiest examples to give would be the geocentric versus heliocentric view of the universe or that the one about the earth being flat. But to give a more recent example, I will use ulcers. Throughout most of last century, ulcers were considered to be nothing more than stress upon the body.

People spent billions of dollars in therapy, medication that wouldn't work, stress relievers, etc. In 2006, some Australian researchers finally published their findings that ulcers are caused by bacteria in the stomach. I believe they had been trying to publish years before that or get people to listen but they were told - nope sorry - that doesn't fit with our current thoughts on ulcers. They also mentioned in an interview that if they worked in the U.S. That they would never have been able to get the funding or find the answer because the dominant paradigm refused to believe that ulcers were anything more than stress.

cdc.gov/ulcer/consumer.htm So, global warming could be happening or it might not. Scientists could be claiming that it isn't because it isn't part of the dominant paradigm that they love to vigorously defend. Anecdotal evidence is not enough in my book to say yes.

There have been weird weather happenings throughout history - highs and lows - which also make me wonder about the validity of it. So, I suppose I'm a wait and see. The good news about global warming though is making people and companies aware of their effects on the environment.

More and more people are trying to do and help the environment more. It may be too little too late but at least it is an attempt.

Nope. The earth's temperature goes up and down in cycles of roughly 100 years. The REAL scientists know this, the ones who aren't running around saying "The Sky Is Falling!"

Here are: the Time magazine article from Monday, Jun. 24, 1974 entitled "Another Ice Age? " and "The Cooling World" from Newsweek, April 28, 1975: time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,94... http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm All very scientific and seemingly plausible, but one must bear in mind how concerns about overpopulation and overconsumption at that time also drove environmental debates into the political arena. I wish I had been as skeptical then as I am now about the methods and motives of certain environmentalists with agendas.

For those who (IMO stubbornly) won't read those short articles, here is the blurb introducing Newsweek's reprint: "Here is the text of Newsweek’s 1975 story on the trend toward global cooling. It may look foolish today, but in fact world temperatures had been falling since about 1940.It was around 1979 that they reversed direction and resumed the general rise that had begun in the 1880s, bringing us today back to around 1940 levels.

I do believe that the weather is shifting in a dangerous way. Whether we are the only cause or not is irrelevant. Since this will ultimately harm us, we should do everything we can to stop our own contributions.

If the earth is going to become inhospitable to human life, then that's what it is going to do, but we certainly shouldn't be hurrying the process along. Glaciers have been receding all over the world for quite a while. Migration patterns are changing.

Seasons are changing, effecting farming and our basic ability to live. If it turns out that this is all natural, and nothing to do with human behavior, then the "terrible consequences" of our efforts to go green will be cleaner air, cleaner water, less oil dependence on the Middle East, and more jobs locally. I think we can risk those terrible, terrible things happening.

If we do nothing, but it turns out that global warning really was a problem, and we were to blame, then the consequence is that we die a slow death sooner. So, at some point, I feel like it doesn't matter if global climate change is real or not, and it doesn't matter what's causing it if we want to agree it is real. The bottom line is that being more environmentally-minded is good for us anyway.

Ignoring the climate will hurt us in one way or another.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.