Climate Change: Superceding the Issue

A lot of the talk about climate change is centered, grounded, maybe obsessed with the idea of "anthropogenic" climate change. That is to say, whether or not humans are the cause of it. And I obviously can see why, if someone believes in such a thing, they want to know who did it and why.

The arguments that I see against climate change are varied, but most of them seem to center around "this is a thing that happens on earth", or "nothing is happening right now". These arguments are often both backed up and refuted by a lot of data that I'm certainly not qualified to dig into enough to draw a conclusion. Often both arguments are deployed together, which indicates (to me at least) an argument which is strictly against 'anthropogenic' climate change, and is not trying to make its own point. That is to say, the person arguing is not necessarily saying their opinion on climate change in general, rather they are arguing vehemently against human-caused climate change.

And I think that's very important. I was reading an article today about Antarctic ice sheets that may have been retreating since the late '30s. And of course there was various fighting and crowing about whether this proved or disproved anthropogenic climate change. But something that really jumped out at me was that in the conclusion of the article, the writers stated that the question of whether humans caused the glacial retreat was "key".

Now, why is it actually key? In the context of the story that a glacier dumping a billion tons of ice per year into the ocean, why would who caused it be key? This is like watching a truck go off the side of the bridge, and looking down at the wreckage and saying, "Before we respond to this, we need to find out why that truck went off the bridge".

So here is the question that I ask to all people, whether human-caused climate change is something you champion or refute.

Do you believe that the climate can change or is changing?
Do you think that the climate could change in a way that hurts us?
Should we, as a species or a nation or a family be prepared to handle the changes?

Thanks for reading, please join the discussion. Happy Thanksgiving

I believe it is man-made. And yes, we should be prepared for it. Just my 2 cents.

Earths climate has changed in the past. We have plenty of proof.
Life must adapt to these changes in order to survive.
Human are the most capable species at adapting to their environment. We manage to live in all conditions, wet, dry, hot, cold. We will adapt.

Did humans cause global warming? No.
Did humans speed the process? Maybe.
Will carbon taxes fix the issue? Definately no.
Should we research alternative energy sources. Absolutely.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Did humans cause global warming? No.
Did humans speed the process? Maybe.
Will carbon taxes fix the issue? Definately no.
Should we research alternative energy sources. Absolutely.

I second that motion.

Good responses. I definitely agree. I'm of the opinion (and this is the real reason I made this post) that the actions to 'be ready' to deal with climate change would actually satisfy both groups. That is to say, I think the way to be capable of dealing with a changing climate would be diligently reducing our footprint on the planet. Whether your goal is to influence the planet less, or be less susceptible to the planet's influence, the steps to take are probably quite similar.

a reply to: TheBlackTiger

Yes, the climate is changing. Will it do drastic things in the coming years? We don't know. In fact, I have found a theme in researching AGW. The big common factor is "we don't know". We can say lots of things, and think lots of things, but we don't know all the factors involved, and have no idea how to account for all of them.

That being said, we do have an issue (actually several) that we have complete control over.

Deforestation. We have the ability to plant trees and work with more sustainable products.

Pollution of the waterways that end up polluting the oceans. We have the ability to realize the mistakes being made and change them. It will just take some effort and good judgement

Depletion of wetlands. This one is easy. Just stop stretching out and start stretching up. Make city life more appealing to the masses and offer affordable housing and transportation in the major cities. Some are doing just that right now.

C02 emissions. Right now, we all drive cars that burn gasoline. If we were to find an alternative fuel source that works, and doesn't pollute, we might be able to nip this one sooner rather than later. But it will take some scientists and positive mentality to get this done.

Now who's fault is it? at this point, what does it even matter?

a reply to: TheBlackTiger

Because the people who want us to believe it is all our fault then want to think they can take control over our lives in various ways to "fix" the problem. Usually, these means manifest as punitive taxes on the various activities of daily living like how you get to work, how much electricity and heat/cooling you may use, even what you are allowed to eat and in what amounts.

Supposedly, by punishing us for living with heavy taxes for all facets of daily life, we can "save" the planet for our children who will really not be allowed to live at all.

So, yes, that's why the argument is over whether or not humans are the principle drivers of changes in climate.

Simple plan would be don't tax it. Once our brave leaders slap yet another tax on something we must look at there motivation. I'm not leaning one way or another, but carbon tax and credits? Smells bad to me, and if one country has a rule for emissions they should all follow it. Hear that China!!

I don't know what article you have been reading but today on the Tv news they had a section with a climate scientist explaining that the Antarctic ice sheet had NOT moved since the time of Scotts expedition. And if you google for results Nasa is saying that the ice sheet has grown of late.
As for the Antarctic ice sheet dumping water into the oceans the ice sheet they are talking about is the ice shelf not the land based ice sheet so that does not come into the equation as the ice shelf is already displacing its volume in the world oceans.
Now for the glaciers if you would look the volume of the worlds glaciers has a way to go to add to the "volume" of the oceans as this pales into significance compared to the volume of water produced by the worlds rivers that is discharged into the oceans and the sea levels have not risen 1 inch.
That then begs the question "just where has all this volume gone"? Please look at the list of all the Earths river daily into the oceans, multiple trillions of gallons per second, and this will bring many peoples ideas of sea levels into perspective.
Are we altering the climate? Hell, of course we are cos that's what we do. We try to tailor the climate for our purpose.
Example, think of these people that make golf courses out of a desert, that ladies and gentlemen HAS to alter the ecosystem. Go and tell those rich golfers that they have to close their course and change it back to desert. I know what the answer will be.

It is not just carbon taxes. Gore put forth an idea to fill the atmosphere with flakes (hmm , an idea of flakes coming from a flake) of reflective material. Yes , to reflect sunlight and cool the earth. Well thought out idea coming from one of the originators of MMGW.
Now , if this is a natural warming period ( and climate change does exist , has for over a million years) it is usually followed by a global cooling period. Now the last period of this the earth went through was approximately 26000 years ago. The earth warmed considerably , then almost "overnight" went into a mini ice age. North America was covered with 2' (yes , that is 2 feet of ice) all the way down to southern Texas. So , now we have plans to cool the earth. Maybe they should rethink it. Instead of a mini ice age , they may usher in a full blown ICE Age.Not good.
Wait until more information is in...

climate change is part of earths natural cycles,
north America was once a steamy tropical jungle populated by dinosaurs, and then later north America was covered in ice.
Humans had nothing to do with either of those climate conditions because there were no humans back then.

climate change happens and humans have no power to significantly stop it or slow it from happening.