Is mankind really a factor in global warming?

I was looking up man made global warming statistics for a friend of mine, and what I found was rather interesting.
First, most articles I found were over 3 years old. Second, some of the articles that cited sources, claimed humans were responsible for less than 1% (0.28% as per the link) of greenhouse gasses.

www.geocraft.com...

Two other supporting links from the first page of a Google search on: "how much do humans contribute to global warming"
blog.heritage.org...
ph.answers.yahoo.com...

If this is true, it would seem to me that the whole debate on man made global warming is null and void. At 0.3% human's role in global warming is well within a statistical margin of error.
( en.wikipedia.org... )
Or in other words human's contribution are absolutely negligible to any affect on the planet and weather patterns.
I will concede that perhaps I am extrapolating statistical margin of error to places it shouldn't be used.

I am curious to know of other articles that specifically will give a percentage of human effect on greenhouse gasses that provide reference links.
I am also curious what members here think about the articles, as well as input regarding more recent articles, that I have not found.

As for myself, I think the idea of man made global warming is egotistical for humans to believe. But I would love to hear from others willing to challenge my views.

Well yeah......Look at all the hot heads around, do you think the earth could cool?

You can't use CO2 emmisions alone to find the answer, you need to look at all of mans activities that negatively impact the ecosystem. Look at the whole picture, we are making a big mess.

I think the whole debate has been a bad one and misrepresented from the start. Some people...see ways to get exceptionally wealthy off crap like Carbon exchanges. Which actually do little do stop anything, but distribute it all on paper at high costs had by all and high profits made by few.

Does man cause global warming? Well....I wonder if a much better question wouldn't be to ask...is man royally screwing up the planet by mass pollution of the air, food and water? Whether that's changing the temps or not, is rather secondary I think. The answer is yes on the pollution by almost any measure.

Now if we take measures to STOP...not simply clever schemes to charge for...all that pollution? The issue of man vs. natural cycle on temp change will answer and handle itself.

By TPTB keeping this about climate change, people who find by their own viewing of the evidence, that it's not likely? Aren't really likely to have the interest or energy left to expend on the real pollution afterward. What should have been the focus all along, IMO.

Is mankind really a factor in global warming?

Only if he believes in global warming.

Well... we blew a hole in the ozone pretty fast leading to a ban on CFCs so I would say we can and do affect things on a global scale.

Plus you are only looking at one part when there are multiple parts to this equation. Deforrestation for example.

Now I am all for trying to conserve this Earth for future generations but carbon credits and taxes aren't the solution. It would take a paradigm shift away from rampant consumerism but that isn't on the horizon.

I wish I had answers...

reply to post by randomtangentsrme


Unless something has changed recently, global warming stalled over a decade ago. It's just been very under reported while the political campaign to end global warming has continued. Also, unless something has changed recently, since many other planets and some moons in our solar system have been shown to have warmed about the same amount, it's perhaps time to look at the huge bright furnace in the sky. For anyone who doubts, just start looking up the reports on temperature trends on Mars, etc. Oh yeahs, they "explain" it away with "special" cases for each, but when it's everywhere, simultaneously, and consistent those special cases explanations are probably total hogwash.

I don't know if it is general practice or not, but there was a report fairly recently that the temperatures in the countryside have been adjusted to be more consistent with temperature trends in cities. I know at least one set of tree-ring temperature trends (bristlecone pines) in the US were dismissed except for a few percent which agreed with preconceived notions. Also, at least one climate study I followed was clearly reporting biased results, if one would even begin to believe such crude simulations. They would start runs several years before the present and stop any run which did not match the present "trend" well enough. This imposes a strong bias on the results and is an extremely poor practice in use of simulation data. Either the simulator works and represents what is possible, or it doesn't. You use all the results, not just the ones you like, Many of those runs which were tossed showed cooling, not warming. They never get seen in the data or conclusions presented to the public.

There's nothing quite like choosing and picking your data to support the results you want. Whether or not there is warming, cooling or otherwise is not my issue with what is going on. My issue is not with global warming per se, it's with biased data and biased analyses by people who may get more funding if they report results a particular way. I also have serious issues with anyone who does not separate the analysis from the interpretation. Interpretation of a result can be badly influenced by a whole host of motivations. Data analysis should be technical and the admissible conclusions, with assumptions, should be able to be clearly stated.

Consensus is not science and has no place in science. The oft repeated saying that extraordinary claims require extraordinay evidence is also total hogwash. The data and the analysis is the data and the analysis, point at what is wrong with the methodology. Opinions, even from "experts," are just opinions as are their interpretations. Any opinion can be weighed against the evidence, what one wishes to believe is not science either -- it's nothing more than a personal belief.

reply to post by Terminal1


I have heard arguments that the earth is more forested now than in the past due to the fire fighting/control that we have decided is appropriate.
But for that statement, I have no proof.

Well the earth is warming, there's not really any debate about that.

Tends to happen when you are coming slowly out of an ice-age, which we are.

Is man contributing to this? Probably a little but nobody knows that exact amount yet. They can't say exactly how much the earth would be warming if not for man, if there is any difference, or what that difference is.

We may be affecting it a lot or hardly at all.

They simply have not gathered enough data yet to make a statement based on empirical evidence its doubtful they will in our lifetimes.

Anyone that claims man is causing global warming is not basing that on any proven scientific data because it takes awhile to gather this information, a lot longer than we have been it so far.

I would say of course man is a factor, but a big factor? I don't know, I personally don't think so, not based on any numbers I've seen.

I think we need more data, do we have 1,000 years of solar flare data? nope. But we do have data on ice-ages and melting-ages, which suggests the earth naturally goes through ice ages and warm-ages.

Meaning the sun itself is the #1 source of global warming. This needs to be backed up with data, but I'd bet money on that data existing in 50 years.

Us Humans give ourselves too much credit. We are a species on this earth. We are a couple of energy trading organisms with the only purpose of exchanging energy in a food chain called life.

Now when people start putting monetary fines and fees into the picture, then yes. It is all Human made and it is our fault and WE WILL PAY!

Originally posted by ManOfHart
Us Humans give ourselves too much credit. We are a species on this earth. We are a couple of energy trading organisms with the only purpose of exchanging energy in a food chain called life.

Now when people start putting monetary fines and fees into the picture, then yes. It is all Human made and it is our fault and WE WILL PAY!

Yea, to think that us puny humans could actually ever do anything that would hurt the Earth is rather pathetic.

We may make our lives miserable but the earth will be just fine. She's survived far worse than anything the human race can ever come up with.

reply to post by randomtangentsrme


That may be a case. I haven't really looked into it much lately and there are other factors as well. For instance... I am no longer getting huge Sears, Montgomery Ward and J. C. Penny catelogues in the mail and I pay a lot of my bills online so there isn't that part of the huge demand like it once was in that aspect.

Forrestry has come a long way... I am happy for that.

Originally posted by Hopechest
Well the earth is warming, there's not really any debate about that.

Tends to happen when you are coming slowly out of an ice-age, which we are.

Totally agree! We are in a warm spell within the current ice age. I, for one, would like to think we could influence the warm spell to last many more thousands of years by doing something so simple as making a little CO2.

Our deforestation and paving are enough to effect the environment by themselves. If you throw in all the burning and other heat generation and chemicals on top of it we are obviously altering the planet.

to think that us puny humans could actually ever do anything that would hurt the Earth is rather pathetic

This is a stupid argument that was first put forward by Rush Limbaugh decades ago. We human do tremendous damage and alteration to the ecosystem, and with 7 billion of us the effect is quite noticeable.

Given that all the planets in our solar system are heating up, I disagree that that only Earth is warming. However, we must be good stewards to our very own planet. We need to plant more tree's and become ever more enthusiastic to preserving our world. Particularly Brazil. We need to save all of our forests and tropical area's.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
I think the whole debate has been a bad one and misrepresented from the start. Some people...see ways to get exceptionally wealthy off crap like Carbon exchanges. Which actually do little do stop anything, but distribute it all on paper at high costs had by all and high profits made by few.

Does man cause global warming? Well....I wonder if a much better question wouldn't be to ask...is man royally screwing up the planet by mass pollution of the air, food and water? Whether that's changing the temps or not, is rather secondary I think. The answer is yes on the pollution by almost any measure.

I agree with this. Pollution is a far bigger problem in the world than the myth of manmade global warming perpetuated mostly by the media and politicians, as well as those getting rich off of carbon credits and the like. We aren't warming the planet, but we sure are making a colossal mess of it, and that's just as bad, if not worse. There's a lot of talk about global warming, but nobody seems to care about the ridiculous amount of pollution we're dumping into the air and water and landfills. They'd rather just push some numbers around on pieces of paper and say that this guy's overpollution now falls under that other guy's underpollution, and claim it now balances out, and that we're saving the environment somehow by doing this. Too bad we can't elect some scientists to high political office...

reply to post by randomtangentsrme


I think global warming is either science-fiction or a natural cycle not caused by humans and technology.
Nonetheless, the issue has been grasped by individuals and corporations to make money. Also, the governments found another tool to make unsteady our minds.

If you look at the average temperature of the earth for the last several million years then it always fluctuates. That's what it does, it doesn't matter if there's humans on the planet or dinosaurs, there will be hot periods and warm periods. We just went through a hot period, and it's only because we have loads more devices to measure it than before that we noticed it. According to Russian scientists, we're about to enter a 200 year period of global cooling, so no, mankind isn't a factor in global warming

I personally believe that the whole entirety of the Solar System and Galaxy is rapidly heating up. It's not just earth, and the powers that be know this. Now when I say this, the reaction I get is "you're just scared of taxes", but I can assure you that's not the case. Well, they use the heating up of the planet to tax us on whatever they possibly can.

It's not just the earth. It's the Sun, it's Jupiter, it's Mars... Our solar system is going through a "Photon Cloud" which is filled with many different subatomic dust particles that are causing everything to heat up rapidly.
Article showing many different planetary aspects

Also, in 2010 the Artic Icecap had actually shown GROWTH of 409,000 square miles. 2010 Article

So it's NOT just earth and it's NOT because of Humans. There's an agenda out there to keep truths hidden from us and it's about time people look on the other side of things.

In say just for example... Earth's 500,000 years of change and existence...do you think Earth's global warming or ice-age freezing...is either "new" or "man-made"?

It...along with earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes...are absolutely NORMAL, REGULAR and EXPECTED.

Does man and our damage to the Earth thru deforestation, and industrial abuse expedite things? Of course. But GLOBAL WARMING and ICE AGES are absolutely what the EARTH does.

It is how the Earth and all the continents were formed in the 1st place....and will continue to do so for eons to come....regardless of whether man cries "global warming-oh-my-GOD!" or not.

So is mankind a factor overall right now? Just a little bit....and when man is long gone from this planet...it will still be happening...without us. It always has been going thru these changes....since it's beginning.